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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.
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.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
"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.
Amidst a biodiverse wasteland on the brink of being enveloped by encroaching bitumen, the enigmatic Beast of the Earth materializes in a prophetic dance.
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.
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 young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
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 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.
Queer poetry in French and Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) in an emblematic and luminous place in Quebec City.
In “Workin' on Grandma,” the 5th installment of the CHRISTEENE Video Collection, burnt memories and “deviled pussy holes” string themselves along the faded lines of CHRISTEENE's family tree, all tucked in tight under a blanket of Korean karaoke dreams.
A percussionist gets the chance to lead a renowned orchestra in a world premiere performance.
"This film is available in French only. Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos." In 1970, Hungarian-Québécois photographer Gabor Szilasi set out for the Charlevoix region of Québec to photograph the last vestiges of a disappearing rural world.
Water bodies grow restless as they awaken from winter’s deep freeze.
David Roche looks out from the screen and starts to talk about love as he rises in the freight elevator to his lofty abode.
Oh Canada - Oh Covid documents the opening days of the coronavirus pandemic in Ottawa, Ontario Canada.
Invisible spiritual and psychological issues permeate every aspect of life, and yet remain hidden in average experience. The transformation from suffering to joy is one such process, and is explored in this three-part piece that pays homage to the video art of the 1980s and 1990s.
The fear of bridges.
A woman paints with her vagina to please the art hungry masses that crowd her gallery and her life.
After 15 years of living in Montréal, Hind returns to Morocco, her country of origin.
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.
When our intrepid heroine Darcy gets her heart broken on her 30th birthday, her friends rally around to help her recover.
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.
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.
Two male blow-up dolls become puppets in this short. Not only is one of the men out of air, but both of them are tragically out of synch with one another.
There are challenges one faces as a New Canadian.
"Good Citizen: Betty Baker" follows a civic-minded housewife as she tracks the missing Prince Phillip. This madcap chase takes our heroine Betty from our neighbor's trash, to a strangely exciting all-girls bar, to the arms of a handsome lady golfer. Cherry pie never looked so good.
"This film is available in French only. Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos." Un jeune homme rend visite à sa mère pour lui présenter sa femme.
A lonely figure walks to a private screening room. What he is getting excited about is not what it may appear.
A video collage based on twenty-eight tracking shots of city scenes.
Bill Pusztai is a photographer who does portraiture and plants.
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.
One Story was originally produced as part of the Community Play “Travois” in 1994. It is a look into the various complicated and overlapping stories that inform the current urban and traditional culture of the First Nations peoples. The questionable politics that dictate Status and the paternalism of Treaty Days are juxtaposed with the pow wow, the voice of graffiti and the street.
Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.
a Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWGs)
It's New Year's Eve in Tijuana, Mexico.
A spoken word poem and minimalist audio track about a sexy highland stream, a love letter to the beauty found in nature, and the mysterious way beauty is suffused in the natural world, written in English and Anishinaabemowin.
A place called home, a North End poem.
This video interrogates how subjectivities, political stances, and modes of social engagement formed elsewhere contribute to our positioning within the local, cultural landscape of Vancouver.
"The Way We Are" shares excerpts of stories from audio interviews with 4 queer Asian women living in Toronto: Katherine Chun, Wenda Li, Tamai Kobayashi, and Nancy Seto. Told in the present-tense, these stories are arranged in a way that explores the past as the present, and in doing so, immersing viewers into the real-lived experiences from a different generation.
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 deeply intimate look at the frightening realities of food insecurity in First Nations communities.
Burning an Effigy considers intergenerational legacies of the Indian residential schools, the colonial presence, and its persistent impacts on community.
Exploring the legacy of the Indian Residential School system by looking at its history, present conditions and hopes for the future.
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.