Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever Made
1975 · 22m · Canada
Directed by Laura Sky
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
Canadian co-operative housing residents describe how owning and running their homes collectively offers security of tenure and mutual aid amid a national housing crisis.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1975 doc about housing co-ops could've been agitprop tedium, but Sky refuses the obvious angle—this is radical precisely because it's intimate, letting residents' voices bloom without editorial muscle-flexing, which somehow makes the politics hit harder than a manifesto ever could.
Laura Sky's essay situates co-op housing within a lineage of participatory documentary and social cinema that values testimony over narration; the formal restraint—allowing space, breath, and genuine dialogue to carry conviction—marks this as the kind of archival work that rewards close viewing across decades.
The crucial move here is the editing rhythm: Sky lets residents finish their sentences, holds on quiet moments of thought, trusts ellipsis over explanation—a choice that transforms what could be bureaucratic into something genuinely moving, proving that the decision to *not* cut away is often the most powerful one available.