The fog enveloped the English town of Rochdale, near Manchester, when a group of working class people decided to hold a meeting to solve the problem of high prices and poor food products in the shops.

The decision of the participants resulted in the idea of ​​​​collecting a sum of money from each other to open their own store and share the profits with the customers. The idea was not to hoard money as much as it was to provide food products at an appropriate price and high quality.

Thus, they guarantee their food at a reasonable price without being dependent on the greed of merchants.

This happened in 1844 and was the nucleus of what then became known as the cooperative system in trade and management, and the first moments of the idea and its historical context were embodied in the movie "Rochdale Pioneers", directed by John Montegrand and Adam Lee Hamilton in 2012.

Since 2010, the Birmingham Film Collaborative has chosen a general framework for the themes of the films it presents under the title "Just Films, for a Fairer World".

Topics include issues related to social justice, the environment, peace, cooperatives and human rights

The film was inspired by the title of a documentary film produced in 1944 to celebrate the centenary of the launch of the cooperative movement under the title "The Rochdale Men", which talks about the beginning, causes and principles of the emergence of the cooperative movement in Britain, although the first signs of the idea of ​​cooperatives date back to 1761 in Scotland at the hands of a group of local workers in textile field.

Both films were produced by the cooperative movement to publicize it and its activities.

They express the cooperative movement's interest in producing and showing films as part of its activities and the joint management pattern it preaches and calls for.

The cooperative movement is much larger and broader than the scope of cinema and the arts, but many may not know that it has contact to various degrees with this sector, as there are currently in Britain alone several cinematic cooperative bodies to present films in local communities.

It is a form of cooperation between the viewing audience to determine what they want and want to see in advance, unlike the other widespread style of presentation that produces and displays the film first, and then evaluates whether or not viewers will accept it.

These associations are spread in several cities such as Slough near London or the English town of Wootton.

In the British city of Birmingham, for example, there is the Birmingham Cooperative Film Society, and it has registered members, and it is open to any member who wants to register with it.

One of the members chooses a title for a movie, and the rest vote for approval or objection to the title until it is approved before it is announced and shown on the second Thursday of every month.

Since 2010, the association has chosen a general framework for the themes of the films it presents under the title "Only Films, for a More Just World."

Topics include issues related to social justice, the environment, peace, cooperatives, and human rights.

It uses the Friends of the Earth exhibition hall in Birmingham.

Among these films is the American documentary “Creep Camp: The Disability Revolution,” directed by Nicole Newnham and James Leppert, produced in 2020. Its events revolve around the idea of ​​a camp for the disabled in the United States and how it was the beginning of changing laws and the societal view of this group there.

The Cooperative Movement and Filmmakers

The idea of ​​the cooperative association stands in the middle between the company model that aims exclusively for profit and the charitable association that completely rejects the idea of ​​profit.

That is why many workers in the cinematic field sought to take advantage of this formula in cooperation.

The cooperative is for-profit, but it puts the interests of members before profit and has a flat pattern of participatory management that differs from the hierarchical pattern from top to bottom, as each member has a vote and a share of management.

And instead of issuing expensive shares that increase with the strength of the company, the cooperative association allows the collection of capital and instead of investing it in the interest of the financiers only, clients, customers and workers enter into a relationship of mutual benefit.

In 1961, the New American Cinema Collaborative was founded in the United States as an association by 22 artists from New York.

It continues to date and promotes and distributes non-commercial American films.

It also archives these cinematic films and provides a service to researchers and students in the field of cinema and has a program for film screenings.

Later, she was able to secure funding from the New York Council on the Arts.

In Britain, there is another example in the world of journalism, but it illustrates the idea, as the “Ethical Consumer” magazine was able in 2009 to collect more than 250 thousand pounds sterling from its readers, and it gave them annual profits estimated at approximately 4% in the framework of a cooperative partnership between it and its audience, which is a good investment profit rate.

In the Arab world, several cinematic cooperatives have emerged over different periods of time, none of which is destined to continue.

Among them is a promising experience to establish a cinematic cooperative in Morocco under the name "Sigma 3" by a number of filmmakers, namely Mohamed El-Saqqat, Mohamed Abdel-Rahman Al-Tazi, Hamid Bennani and Ahmed Al-Buanani.

This group was already able to produce one of the signs of Moroccan cinema, which is the movie "Wishma" directed by Hamid Bennani in 1970.

In Tunisia, the experience revolved around the union framework aimed at achieving union goals for members without addressing the nature of cinematic work in terms of production, distribution and screening. The "Artists, Creators and Technicians Cooperative" was established in 2017, which provides therapeutic, recreational and social services to workers in the cinema sector.

In Jordan, the "Amman Film Cooperative" was established with the aim of encouraging the Jordanian and Palestinian film industry in the diaspora through training and assistance in production, but I did not come across any clear activity for it.

The Arab cooperative experience in the cinema sector seems to be in the stage of discovery and recognition, and this stage has lasted for many decades.

And if we take into account the surplus of human capital and the talented Arab directors who won local and international cinematic awards, we can discover that this treasure can be discovered, and the cinematic works that are dreamed of can be presented without waiting for huge investment capitals.

The collaborative framework ensures attracting funding based on the movement's six principles of "self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity".

As it aims for profit, it takes into account the well-being of the creator and the quality of the product, in addition to the ethical framework of the movement.