Australian Made Awards 2025 | 7 With a new era of storytelling on the horizon, one where the stories that are emotionally intelligent, culturally aware, and craft-driven are those that will thrive, Carioca has established itself as the leading independent creative house to guide brands, artists, agencies, and institutions alike through the next iteration of creative production and purpose-led storytelling in Australia. From its home in Queensland, Carioca works across film, advertising, branded content, and more. On hand to tell us about all of this was the founder and executive producer of Carioca, Carolina Gesser. Carioca exists to develop and deliver work that not only looks good, but which truly means something for both its clients and their audiences. Be it an integrated campaign, a social-first platform, a music video, or long/short films, this independent film production agency in Australia thrives by bringing storytelling that resonates deeply to life through purpose-led ideas. Driving this is the shared interest in culture, behaviour, and emotion that dictates how Carioca operates – and which ensures it builds genuine human connections. As its recognition in our Australian Made Awards 2025 suggests, behind Carioca is also a series of values spanning fairness, resilience, straight-talking, and the belief that effort should be rewarded. Carolina has surrounded herself with Australians who embody these principles as she builds Carioca, and the blend of friendship, strong ethics, humour, and grit which defines the culture here has not just shaped how this creative house works, but also how it thinks. In this way, Carioca embodies what it means to be Australian made. Diving deeper into this concept, Carolina told us: “At Carioca, we don’t care about surnames, backgrounds, or traditional hierarchies. We care about people who chase excellence, who want to grow, and who believe storytelling can shape culture for the better.” Ideas are therefore shared freely across the team; everyone has a voice and that voice is heard. Transparency is another cornerstone of this work, present in everything from how team members interact with clients and investors through to their co-collaborators. To ensure that it always has the best people on hand for a specific project – with these varying greatly in terms of content, look, feel, etc. – Carioca hires team members on a project-by-project basis. Attitude, potential, and creative instinct are all favoured massively over qualifications and prior experience, and a big part of what Carioca does is support the next generation of emerging creative talent, those looking for a career change, or parents returning to work. This helps to keep the industry alive, diverse, and evolving. And this is all needed now more than ever, given the wider creative industry is under real pressure due to factors such as creative labour being devalued, budgets shrinking, and the increasing difficulty of making a long-term career out of this sector. Carolina has experienced this first-hand, and it is exacerbated by the fact she is an immigrant, which she believes adds a an extra layer of resistance. More recently, of course, has been the rise – and misuse – of AI, which is threatening the creative sector. However, it is far from all doom and gloom for Carioca, which excels not in spite of these challenges, but because of the novel approach it has in responding to them. Carolina explained: “Instead of chasing broken models, we’re building our own – using storytelling, social platforms, and community-building to grow audiences first, before scaling projects.” Such diversification means that Carioca’s work benefits everyone involved, not just the profit margins of this creative house. Building this further is its main aim for 2026. The new year marks the beginning of a new era for Carioca, which is launching a number of original projects off its own back as part of its refined approach to storytelling. One notable example is Locker Room, a social-first platform giving young people (especially boys) a healthier way to understand emotions, relationships, and identity. The goal for this project is to be the antithesis of the harmful rhetoric dominating many of the online spaces appealing to men, the unsettling themes of which have been in the limelight as of late. Another exciting venture is seeing Carioca partner with Sports in Motion to develop and launch a project based around this idea of elevating the visibility of elite adaptive sport through the power of storytelling, branding, and live experiences that only this independent creative house can pull off. By reframing disability sport as not only aspirational but also powerful and relevant, the team here are tapping into their ultimate aim of creating work that truly belongs to both the people who make it and the communities it serves. As all of this shows, if there is one take away from Carioca’s journey, it is that shortcuts are not an option. The path of slow, sustainable growth built it is walking on the back of its collaboration, ownership, and creative integrity is what makes its work timeless, a distinction we hope we have adequately reflected through its place in this programme. Contact: Carolina Gesser Company: Carioca Web Address: carioca.au Excellence Award in Creative Film Production 2025 - Queensland
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUyMDQwMA==