AustLit

'Film co-ops were born out of necessity – both economic and political. During the 1960s and 1970s, avant-garde and experimental cinema, “expanded cinema” and varying strands of independent filmmaking sought to grow audiences for work unwelcome in public broadcasting and commercial distribution. Co-operatives were established across Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. Mostly they were distribution and exhibition operations rather than production collectives, although these kinds of experiments, where they did occur, were often aligned with co-ops. London’s Cinema-Action Collective established in 1968, for example, was an activist media group with close ties to the London Filmmaker’s Co-op. Also established in 1968, the Austrian Filmmakers’ Co-op in Vienna (with some hiatus in the 1970s) continues today, as does Canyon Films in San Francisco. Co-operative structures matched the ethos of their period, insofar as they proposed alternatives to private enterprise by creating institutions envisaged with a commitment to “authenticity”, creativity and co-operation – in contrast with the dominant, “straight” culture’s repressive authoritarianism, alienation and avarice. Needless to say, actuality was a little more complex and compromised than such a dichotomy might suggest, as Australia’s examples illustrate.' (Author's introduction)