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How does it work?
VUCAVU works on a video-on-demand (VOD) basis. To rent a film or video, browse the catalogue, view details for individual films and videos, and click RENT when you find something to watch.
What is MY LIST?
You can create a customized list of films and videos to watch later. To add to your list, browse the catalogue and select the +MY LIST button.
VUCAVU.education is a streaming platform that gives educators and students access to a curated selection of independent Canadian film and video art spanning more than 50 years. The shared catalogue includes documentary, fiction, experimental, and animation titles from artists across Canada, offering many unique views into the country’s cultural landscape.
VUCAVU.education is an initiative of the VUCAVU.com platform.
The VUCAVU team, in consultation with our content partners, have made the decision to slowly shut down our view-on-demand (VOD) services on our platform to make way for a new direction in our operations. VOD changes will occur on VUCAVU over the coming months. As we make changes to the platform with our developers, we will periodically update this page and share news in our regular communications.
Fanny meets her high school friends for the annual Switch & Bitch Party.
A young songwriter seeks out her folk idol in a sleepy lakeside village, only to become enmeshed in a secretive society whose rituals safeguard the threshold between worlds.
This is video compilation is part of the educational guide produced as part of Archive/Counter-Archive’s (A/CA) Case Study, Through Feminist Lenses: Video Works at Groupe Intervention Vidéo with Groupe Intervention Vidéo.
Follow along with Spirit Bear as he realizes the importance of learning history to make better decisions now and for future generations of kids and cubs.
This playful, poignant & memorable short shadow play, where humans take from forests whatever they desire - leaving nothing. A collaborative film by a Canadian filmmaker and a Japanese visual artist.
A look at the community response to the murder of Nirmal Singh Gill, a caretaker at the Guru Nanak Gurudwara in Surrey BC by 5 white supremacist skinheads in 1998.
VHS video documentation of The images, such as they are, do have an effect on us: PORN Dossier. The envelope and folders are opened and the contents examined.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
Digital video documentation of The images, such as they are, do have an effect on us: PORN Dossier. The envelope and folders are opened and the contents examined.
Filmed sporadically and intuitively during the summer months of 2020 and 2021, Homunculi is a recontextualization of a personal archive of hand processed 16mm “home movies” and various cinematographic experiments.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
Amidst a biodiverse wasteland on the brink of being enveloped by encroaching bitumen, the enigmatic Beast of the Earth materializes in a prophetic dance.
"C'est à qui, cette ville?" is a response to the 1984 film, “Ville, Quelle Ville?” This original super 8 film documented various places in Toronto’s east end and reflected upon a young woman’s life in the city.
VHS video documentation of The images, such as they are, do have an effect on us: CENSORSHIP dossier. The envelope and folders are opened and the contents examined.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
Chilean refugee Daniela (Carmen Aguirre) wants to travel back to Chile to learn more about her family as her father is reluctant to talk about his past. But she is about find out much more than she expected.
A shortened version of the synopsis that must be less than 500 characters in length. This teaser appears in a pop up when a user hovers their cursor on a title image in our search or other pages.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
Shot on Bolex, and hand-processed, the short film documents the steps of creating an oil painting. Narrated by rural Manitoba artist Vivian Paschke.
"Experiment # 1" was a test on the vitality of silver halide crystals on film emulsion.
A short documentary about Canadian media artist Norman White.
They Met In A Garden is an exploration and analysis of the archetypal romantic love story.
A charming portrait of Ken D'Cruz, a baby photographer who dreams of acting.
A woman paints with her vagina to please the art hungry masses that crowd her gallery and her life.
milkteeth is an investigation into the imperfection of memory and attempts at preserving the ephemeral.
L’œil du spectateur s’arrête sur l’image d’une femme, entraperçue entre des rideaux noirs translucides.
After 15 years of living in Montréal, Hind returns to Morocco, her country of origin.
Inkster’s beautiful fiction references the destruction of Africville on the outskirts of Halifax in 1969. Four characters speak directly to the came ra about their lives and sexuality. This use of direct address says docu mentary, but the actors speak Inkster’s bittersweet words.
A weakening ganglord regains the grip over his children when he is visited by the ghost of his father. The ghost then collects his "generational fees."
ZAGROS follows the creation of carpets across the Western mountains of Iran, revealing the colours of a culture through labour.
Shot at the Chinatown Basketball Tournament in New York City, August, 1997, Season of the Boys is about the myth of a “boy season” that all men have been waiting for, which comes just once and only for a brief moment. Mixing the unlikely subjects of athletics, voyeuristic desire and poetic expression, Season of the Boys explores how the culture of youth and beauty is constructed and influences us from the intimate viewpoint of the videomaker.
Two imperfect women share one perfect body.
Jill Johnston is the author of “Marmalade Me,” “Gullible’s Travels,” “Lesbian Nation’,” and “Motherbound.” This cinema verité documentary is a portrait of Johnston at work and a feminist author at a transitional point in the women’s movement and in her own career.
A short film on the subject of Indigenous Love. What is (romantic) love? And what does it mean to you? 8 couples share their thoughts
An estranged couple meets one last time to decide the fate of their relationship. Featuring James Bunton, Regina the Gentlelady, Jeff Harris, Owen Pallett, Katie Ritchie and Judy Virago.
"Gabey and Mike: A Jewish Summer Camp Love Story" takes its name from a song by Mermaid Café - a folk band comprised of Andi D., Joe A. Rider and Merrill Nisker (now known as ‘Peaches’) that gained popularity at Canadian Jewish summer camps in the early 90s. The video juxtaposes the tale of the band with playful re-creations of the story of Gabey and Mike, in a queer re-staging of the classic summer camp movie.
A pop explosion of Ukranian delight that will leave you bedazzled. Are you ready?
Is Ohio the fish or the phisher? The film’s sexual metaphor extends to artists, who use their own experiences as material for their work, becoming both fish and fisher, harvester and harvested. Ohio’s deeply personal documentary footage and audio recordings serve as the raw material for her exploration of class, art, and the performance of heterosexuality.
A woman, a transgender man, and their cat travel towards a mysterious roadside attraction known as "The Thing.”
Change Over Time is an animated, experimental, personal documentary about the filmmaker’s first year on testosterone from an impressionistic and poetic perspective.
A multilayered video installation by Emilio Rojas critiques the construct of the stereotypical Canadian male
In "Bustin' Brown,” the fourth installment of the CHRISTEENE Video Collection, CHRISTEENE confronts the ever-present bastardization of anal sex from mainstream bourgeois heterosexuals by returning "da buh-hole" to its rightful owners.
“The Script” presents a collage of revealing moments pulled from material in the Prelinger Archives, an online collection of over 11,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial and amateur) films made between the 1910s – 1980s.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
still is part of an ongoing body of work that addresses the persistence of colonial structures in contemporary Canada through a critical white settler lens. These works confront facets of this overarching concern through a practice of performing interventions into the land/scape and tampering with iconic elements of Canadian visual culture. Integrating the residue of an off-camera performance within a quintessentially ‘Canadian’ landscape as a politically, culturally and historically mitigated r
Is the word “Indian” a label for Canadian Aboriginals to reject or reclaim?
A look at how the community of Lake St. Martin First Nation was destroyed and displaced by water management policy.
Toronto, July 27, 2013, shortly after midnight.
Burning an Effigy considers intergenerational legacies of the Indian residential schools, the colonial presence, and its persistent impacts on community.
Founder: Noun- a person who establishes an institution or settlement. Verb- (of a ship) fill with water and sink. (of a plan or undertaking) fail or break down.
Grand Chief Sheila North investigates unsolved murder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
It's New Year's Eve in Tijuana, Mexico.
Since the launch of the VUCAVU platform, we've collaborated with hundreds of artists, arts organizations and educators from across Canada to present bilingual curated and educational programming online. Artists always receive royalties and screening fees from these programs and they often include additional educational resources such as recordings of roundtable discussions and artist talks. After the paid or free programming period expires, available artworks can be rented individually.
We're delighted to launch A/CA's Educational Guide series; a project and research network dedicated to the activation and preservation of audiovisual archives created by Aboriginal peoples (First Nations, Métis, Inuit), Black communities and people of color, women, LGBT2Q+ and immigrant communities.
Discover our new VUCAVU.education postcards designed by Emil Woudenberg from Strike Design Studio, featuring a still from Caroline Blais’ film “Étoiles” (available for VOD on VUCAVU!). We’re pleased to pay Caroline for using their image and are dedicated to building VUCAVU in community with artists.