Charts the cultural life of late 20th century Australia through the rise, fall and afterlife of the Filmmakers' Co-operatives - the passionate individuals who moved through them and the powerfully independent films they made.Many of Australia's most celebrated independent filmmakers began their creative lives in the Filmmakers Co-ops. Dedicated, energetic and young, filmmakers like Jan Chapman, Gillian Armstrong and Phillip Noyce, fondly acknowledge the formative influence that was the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op.In Melbourne, Barbara Creed, Sue Ford, Ian Gaal, Peter Tammer and countless other artists and filmmakers embraced the international counterculture and emergent Australian cinema, through independent film and video.The Filmmakers' Co-ops transitioned from making and exhibiting 1960's avant-garde movies, to distribution of films for the women's movement, Indigenous rights, prisoners' rights, gay and lesbian liberation, and gradually transitioned to a critical engagement with a market driven film industry.