We're sorry, but our site requires Javascript to be enabled. If you would like instructions on how to enable Javascript, please click here.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
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.
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.
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.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
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.
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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
Amidst a biodiverse wasteland on the brink of being enveloped by encroaching bitumen, the enigmatic Beast of the Earth materializes in a prophetic dance.
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.
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.
"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.
Artist Talk with Farrah Miranda & Evelyn Encalada Grez (With Audio Description)
Temporary Tattoos applied to 35mm for eternity. An energetic conjuring of Manitoban spirits. Starring: Haunted HyperActive Hypnotists and Breakneck Butterfly Barfbags.
A meditation on (im)mortality, mediated by a lifetime of images
Only by looking back, there is an understanding of finding yourself on a moon-like space.
Artist Talk with Nelson Wu
A simple action is transformed through film into an emotive, voyeuristic piece.
An intimate look at Martha Fleming and Lyne Lapointe’ s work, and more specifically Materia Prima, a project for the abandoned garden of an historical landmark in Sao Paulo, Brasil.
An overexposed hi-con roll affords an opportunity for the development of internal vision.
Couplings presents images of 38 men and women both as individuals and in various configurations. It tweaks received values which may underlie assumptions and prejudices about what is and isn’t appropriate in intimate relationships.
Oh Canada - Oh Covid documents the opening days of the coronavirus pandemic in Ottawa, Ontario Canada.
ZAGROS follows the creation of carpets across the Western mountains of Iran, revealing the colours of a culture through labour.
Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Georgette, the resident fag hag, hatches a plan to get rid of a rival, but the outcome is not what she had anticipated…
"The Magus" is a multi-format, process-based experimental film that explores the root of artistic creation.
Inside a drab middle school in 1992, a sexually-confused eighth-grader attempts to regain his dignity after being bullied by a sex-obsessed 'cool kid' whom he privately fantasizes about.
A diasporic reverie on what life would be like if the filmmaker's family never immigrated.
Kyle struggles to hold onto his ailing relationship with David who suffers from Alzheimer's.
Exploring the concept of the common space all women share, “The Gaze,” questions notions of acceptable female behavior and appearance in the patriarchal society.
The guertita, a white American woman, and the prietita, a South Asian Canadian woman, have an affair while on a tourist trip to Mexico.
Stop-motion animation is used to manipulate a penis whose desire becomes its own demise.
"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.
Utilizing human pixillation, Isabelle's demand to nurture conjures a variety of sensations... perverse, kitsch, sweet witch voodoo?
HOMEBELLY combines waking dreams with unsettling fragments of this and that. An icy soundscape is set to a live-action animated drama featuring a sleeping body and a persistant rock.
Playing on the classic backstage drama, this short musical featuring Jef Barbara's I Know I'm Late embeds the story of its own making into a fantasy performance in the dressing room of a Montreal cabaret.
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.
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
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.
Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.
“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.
This film is available in French only.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
The artist ponders the possibilities of reconciliation.
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
Hoop Dancers is a silent video featuring four young men in powwow regalia playing pick-up basketball.
A place called home, a North End poem.
Video collage that approaches memory and how we remember, by overlaying images and sound, to create a disorienting moment in time.
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.