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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.
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.
"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.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
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.
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.
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.
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!
A young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
Numb, questions Kanata’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, allowing the viewer to contemplate the next 150 year relationship.
A video poem about a day in the life of two young men.
Seduction isn’t always about a beautiful score.
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.
During the Arab revolution, a love story between two women – a Canadian and a Syrian American – turns into an international socio-political thriller spotlighting media excesses and the thin line between truth and falsehood on the Internet.
A personal comedic documentary about a filmmaker's outlandish experiences working on a Guy Maddin film.
Poet RM Vaughan muses on his relationship to 50s film noir tough guy hunk Sterling Hayden, and why he cannot make his life more like a 50s film noir masterpiece. Created by video/internet artist Jared Mitchell, the film inserts Vaughan into the rain-dappled, shadowed and dreamy world of film noir - turning the poet into Hayden’s moll, lover, and dumb broad.
A lone figure travels an internal landscape haunted by mistakes of the past.
Maiden Indian follows three women on a journey from the mall toward a deeper understanding of self.
A fun and imaginative stop-motion animation that examines the allure and consequences of stationery supplies.
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.
Facing the Monsters Within
"In ‘(ab)NORMAL’ the relationship spectrum, from paranoid avoidance to smothering and overwhelming attention, is traced through four pixilated sketches." - Toronto International Film Festival
“Dear Sis, I am sitting on the subway and all of a sudden, I have this urge to write to you...”, here begins an apology letter written from one sister to another. Starting with the issue of sibling rivalry, the video is a simple and straightforward examination of the connection and the distinction between one person and the next in the world we live in -- talking us further into the greater subject of humanity.
"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.
This black and white short salutes the women who helped define the concepts of glamour.
Using the voice as a metaphor for political voice, Stephen Chen traces his journey as a male mezzo, faced with prejudice and marginalization back in Singapore, and later in North America.
Stop-motion animation is used to manipulate a penis whose desire becomes its own demise.
When our intrepid heroine Darcy gets her heart broken on her 30th birthday, her friends rally around to help her recover.
A diasporic reverie on what life would be like if the filmmaker's family never immigrated.
Grand Mother Tongue pairs poetry, spoken in Plains Cree, and breath with the intimate imagery of strawberries being consumed bite-by-bite, and finger lick for finger lick.
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.
In February, 1998, the artist traveled back to Hong Kong to revisit his elementary school, La Salle Primary. Time has changed but there are still the same Chinese Catholic boys in school uniforms.
A little sunflower seeks the light but is battered by the elements. Will anyone come to the rescue?
Toronto, July 27, 2013, shortly after midnight.
Exploring the legacy of the Indian Residential School system by looking at its history, present conditions and hopes for the future.
a Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWGs)
A deeply intimate look at the frightening realities of food insecurity in First Nations communities.
A split-screen video of the Trans-Canada Highway and the single Access Road on our Reserve, the Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation / Nezaatiikang, located north-west of Thunder Bay. Before the completion of the Access road in the late 2000's, the Reserve was only accessible by water. The roads work as metaphor of Colonization by revealing disparity between Canada and Indigenous Nations.
"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.
A group of Vietnamese nationals is making their way to an unknown location in a shipping container to find a better life.
This intricate stop-motion animation interlaces Canada’s colonial past with writer-director Amanda Strong’s personal family history — and illuminates Cree, Métis, and Anishinaabe reclamation of culture, language, and Nationhood. (Danis Goulet, TIFF)
Grand Chief Sheila North investigates unsolved murder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
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.
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.