The Co-op grew out of the earlier, less formal, group Ubu Films[2]: p40 and held its first official meeting in May 1970.
With the receipt of support for distribution and exhibition from the recently formed and federally funded Australian Film Commission (AFC), the Co-op opened its own 100-seat cinema in St Peters Lane Darlinghurst in 1973, with the upstairs premises used for film distribution and production of the newspaper Filmnews, begun in February 1975.
With the beginnings of the Co-op coinciding with the burgeoning of the Women's Liberation movement, and of the Aboriginal Land Rights movement, the Co-op distributed and exhibited some of the first Australian films by, for, and about women, and some of the first films about Aboriginal Australian history and politics.
In 1981, the Co-op's cinema closed when the AFC decided not to continue its funding subsidy; and the St Peters Lane premises were vacated in February 1985.
The AFC decided that only one government-funded distribution body was to be supported and that was the AFI; the Co-op had to close its doors in February 1986.