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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
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.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
Did you know that many First Nations schools get less money than provincial schools? Shannen Koostachin, a young leader from Attawapiskat First Nation, knew this was wrong, and so does Spirit Bear.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
While narrating letters written to her ex, a woman attempts to cast away the lingering shadows of the relationship and overcome feelings of rejection and failure.
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.
"I watched a movie one afternoon and this is the story of that movie." A fictional story is combined with my personal archives of photos.
The real encloses the remembered. A poetic look at the distorting / defining effect of memory.
In this film, Renate Gravert-Martins’s photography and life is told through her work and 16mm reinterpretations of her images.
Snow Search finds four performers searching for each other, each carrying one quarter of a photographic portrait of Michael Snow. A lyrical exploration through the city and an homage to Michael Snow.
Employing a simple three-part structure, PATH is about personal experience and the interpretation of that experience.
An Artist randomly generates animated drawings that come to life before his eyes.
An overexposed hi-con roll affords an opportunity for the development of internal vision.
Numb, questions Kanata’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, allowing the viewer to contemplate the next 150 year relationship.
A loving portrait of Winnipeg's crown jewel: Portage Place Mall.
A squirrel ponders the essence of time.
A magical and nostalgic universe is revealed, where memories oscillate between reality and imaginary.
What do we bring with us from our homeland that remains in our possession? What do we discard? What do we pass on? Language, memories, objects that bear witness to past lives and often, to other cultures...
David Roche looks out from the screen and starts to talk about love as he rises in the freight elevator to his lofty abode.
This work is a fantasy of freedom, in which a stroll in the park gives rise to an opening up of unstable sexual codes, shifting identities and the empowering game of come and go.
Portrait of young contemporary feminists. In an era that has stated the death of ideologies, these young people still believe in a better world!
Part of the ongoing “Supa” series, Supa Stition is a glimpse into the unseen world of magic and the occult.
In a chaotic sea of silver, images reveal themselves.
A year of pictures mash into an intense viewing experience.
A short documentary film that follows four young gay men as they discuss gay life and sexual health in Montreal.
This short documentary-style interview film takes a quick look at some key terms that originated within queer Black and POC communities (such as the ballroom scene), tracing their cultural significance to contemporary mainstream popular culture.
"In this quintessential 'coming out' film, a grinding rhythm leads us through a passage of closed doors, as a man struggles to break free from his literal and social confinement." - Images Festival of Independent Film & Video catalogue, 1995
Set in a bar in 1960, two women share a look that launches a fantasy encounter. An homage to the women who had the courage to explore their sexuality in the mid 20th century, and a lament for those who could not. Set to the song, “Oh Regret” by singer/songwriter Mary Lorson.
The housecall in “Filth” doesn’t go quite as planned when a simple cleaning job becomes a nightmare. A pixilated tale which combines both the action in the film and the action on the film.
Whitewash examines slavery in Canada and its omission from the national narrative. The country prides itself as being the benevolent refuge where enslaved Africans who were brought to United States gained their freedom via the Underground Railroad. That powerful image overshadows the fact that slavery was legal in Canada for over 200 years under both French and British rule.
Gaawiin Gego [Got No Nothing] is based on a rhyme in Ojibwe that my great aunt taught me, the lyrics reference the blues and a Nina Simone song. The audio track is layered over top of found video footage from Lac Des Mille Lacs, which is the lake beside our Reserve
The artist ponders the possibilities of reconciliation.
"ôtênaw" is a film documenting the oral storytelling of Dwayne Donald, an educator from Treaty 6, Edmonton Canada. Drawing from nêhiyawak philosophies, he speaks about the multilayered histories of Indigenous peoples’ presence both within and around amiskwacîwâskahikan, or what has come to be known as the city of Edmonton.
This film is available in French only.
Maiden Indian follows three women on a journey from the mall toward a deeper understanding of self.
Exploring the legacy of the Indian Residential School system by looking at its history, present conditions and hopes for the future.
Riverside Queerness reveals hard moments in the Prairies' shadowed queer history. Three storytellers navigate muddy waters that is Manitoba's subconsciousness; where truth is blurred by the power of the currents.
September 2013. The Court ruling is reached. Almost a quarter million Dominicans of Haitian descent have just become stateless because of the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal’s decision.
A short video featuring composited imagery with themes of the transitory nature of moments in time, the ephemeral passing of everyday mundane experiences, and dealing with loss.
Burning an Effigy considers intergenerational legacies of the Indian residential schools, the colonial presence, and its persistent impacts on community.
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
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.