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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.
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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.
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.
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 female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
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.
A young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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 presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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.
Inside the Quebec student strike.
Lysanne poured her heart and soul in the 2012 Quebec student protests. In the midst of the movement’s demise, she loses her way and finds herself by her own thoughts and motivations...
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.
Hortense Gordon was a teacher as well as an artist, and studied abstract painting under one of the great teachers of that movement, Hans Hoffman. Researching Hortense turned up as much about her teachings (and, by extension, Hoffman's) and philosophies as her work, so in the end I felt I was working through the film as a pupil. These are my exercises.
Art moves from innocence to complexity, back to innocence.
Town Without Pity is seven relentless minutes of suburban/sub arctic strip malls. Strung together, one after the other, these shopping centers become a featureless, undifferentiated mass of convenience. All of this is set to Gene Pitney’s memorable hit.
Artist talk with Nelson Wu (With Audio Description)
Only by looking back, there is an understanding of finding yourself on a moon-like space.
Sleep is a metaphor for lack of hope, for energy that is inexplicably draining from you. Beyond caring, your passive body allows others to voyeur. A restrained pallet of only black, red, white and flesh establishes a controlled interior and a formative exploration of the soul.
milkteeth is an investigation into the imperfection of memory and attempts at preserving the ephemeral.
Using an experimental approach that combines biographical, documentary, and fictional techniques, this video-film lets us see through the eyes of someone who, after suffering a cerebral aneurysm, becomes a prisoner of his own body within a time and space beyond his control.
A magical and nostalgic universe is revealed, where memories oscillate between reality and imaginary.
‘Video Home System’ traces the convergence of popular culture and politics in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. This video showcases the connections between pop culture and nationalism, and how bootleg economies kept the cinema industry alive during periods of censorship.
At long last, everything you’ve always wanted to know about down there, but were afraid to ask. A groovy guide to feminine hygiene wherein our heroine, Ms V., struts her stuff about town in the funkiest anatomical tour ever. She raps! She dances! She’s big! "We’re Talking Vulva" is a wear and care manual with kick- it’s a rock video.
The Body of Others, is an experimental video that engages the tensions between sexuality, identity, visibility, representation and the body, as it relates to queer subjectivity.
This piece addresses the astonishing rate of transformation in the contemporary Chinese cityscape.
“Transforming FAMILY” jumps directly into an ongoing conversation among trans people about parenting. It's a beautiful snapshot of current issues, struggles and strengths of transexual, transgender and gender fluid parents (and parents-to-be) in North American society today.
The title of COCONUT/CANE & CUTLASS represents the psyche behind the collective memory, history and imagination of Indo-Caribbean people. The film is a mythic/poetic rumination on exile, displacement, and nationhood from the perspective of an Indo-Caribbean lesbian who migrated to Canada twenty years ago.
A posthumous coming out film diary to my mom. Shot October 11, 1988, Bethel Memorial Park, Detroit.
Loveletter to Saint Boniface is a bilingual experimental documentary that unravels personal and community memories regarding racism and homophobia while exploring notions of language and culture.
GUISE is an adult fairy tale for the 90s. Arising from the earth, a body discovers its nakedness. A suit of armour becomes a metaphor for the trappings of identity. Pixilated to produce the effect of a human marionette, accompanied by a good-natured verse. “guise” is by turns dark and humorous.
This black and white short salutes the women who helped define the concepts of glamour.
99 pictures of men. What do they have in common? Let me give you a hint. These are clippings from some Chinese-American newspapers -- salesmen, insurance agents, real estate brokers. All with glasses, ties and suits. Along with some old Chinese radio music. A joke? A stereotype? a fetish? You tell me. It’s anybody’s game. What you see is what you get.
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.
Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.
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.
"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.
WÎSKACÂN is an experimental contemporary dance film utilizing Bunraku-style tabletop puppetry and object performance. Video, Puppet Design, Performance, and Music by Tyson Houseman. This project was made as part of Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals initiative, and I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
A woman transforms into Louis Riel in an exploration of Métis identity.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
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.
An Ojibwe boy falls in love with Grandfather Sun, and recites an Anishinaabe language morning prayer with a few slight alterations. Thank you Grandfather. Miigwetch Nshoomis. I love the feel of your light on my skin. Gotta love that Vitamin D. The language used in this piece is Anishinaabe/Ojibwe.
Grand Chief Sheila North investigates unsolved murder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
a Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWGs)
Hoop Dancers is a silent video featuring four young men in powwow regalia playing pick-up basketball.
As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self. Wash Day is an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one's outwardly appearance.
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.