Ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March, we caught up with Emma Sargent of Brisbane’s Five Storey Films to look at how this women-led company connects with the 2026 theme of ‘balance the scales’.
Formed in 2024, Five Storey Films (FSF) might be a ‘new kid on the block’ but their four principals—Anna Jeffries, Rebecca McElroy, Jenine Olliver, and Emma Sargent—hold a firm foundation of industry experience and decades of expertise in the factual space. Recipients of Screen Queensland’s Business Enterprise fund, the company founders are dedicated to crafting stories, collaborations and careers, while championing the Queensland screen sector and building FSF into a factual powerhouse with global reach.
Emma brings a decade of experience in distribution, impact producing, and writing to Five Storey Films and has recently been working with Far North Queensland’s Millstream Productions on their feature documentary Our Blue Heart. Not content with launching just one company, Emma also opened Moxie Mojo Media in 2024, which focuses on distribution and impact producing, assisting filmmakers to craft marketing campaigns and audience engagement strategies.
Chatting with Screen Queensland from a regional film shoot, Emma considered how a production company like Five Storey Films might be working to ‘balance the scales’ in an industry traditionally dominated by men.
“Five Storey Films is a women-run business, but I think our slate has developed more organically than from a conscious choice to centre women in our storytelling. There are untold stories about women that only women can tell, we can share that experience and understand what it truly means. Fifty per cent of the population can’t do that!”
That understanding is also a key element to the business coming together and Emma reflects that women working with other women means there is less explaining to do when it comes to extended career gaps due to motherhood or caregiving.
“It also means there is a shorthand inherent in our company culture and we’re naturally more mindful of the demands on working mothers, we just accept when someone has to stay home with a sick child and we can adapt without question.”
Being a women-led enterprise has also shaped the communication approach within FSF and for Emma this is reflected by establishing a workplace where they strive to ‘talk, not assume’.
“We’re transparent, we’re accountable, we approach things with kindness and understanding, and we listen. We’re also not afraid to have the tough conversations, but always from those foundations. It’s a culture of kindness.”
As the scales within the industry are becoming more balanced, Emma sees a cultural shift in the type of stories being told and who is telling them.
“Women telling stories about women means we bring things to light that have previously been hidden. Such as within the medical field, topics that have been misunderstood or not discussed at all. Men can’t tell these stories, but there is an opportunity for women to tell these stories, and open conversations out in the social conscious rather than behind closed doors, providing insight and real perspectives to experiences that only women have.”
Just as Five Storey Films is reshaping company structure and culture to open the door to new screen stories, Emma has also seen a shift at agency-level across the sector with more women in key decision-making roles.
“There is a new world of women and that’s really something!”
Emma does caution that while there has been a structural shift right across the Australian screen industry, the cultural paradigm can take longer to catch up.
“It’s interesting that internalised bias can still be at play. I still have experiences where despite being a lead on a project and the principal of a company, it is still the male member of the team that can be heard more readily. That sort of evolution will take more time and there is still lots of work to be done.”
And while that shift continues, there is also a shoot to complete, and Emma returns to the field as filming starts up again.
Find out more about Five Storey Films and learn all about International Women’s Day and how we can all help to #BalanceTheScales.
International Women’s Day Watchlist
