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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.
Sydnie Baynes is a Toronto-based multimedia artist and animator currently studying at OCAD University. She holds a BFA in Film Animation and creates work that explores Black history, identity, and self-love through storytelling and digital media. Her artistic practice bridges the worlds of education and independent media, with a focus on accessibility, empowerment, and cultural preservation. Welcome to the team Sydnie!
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.
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 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 young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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.
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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
The Complete Book of Roses—pages 1–114. A brief glimpse of the disconnect between digital devices and recording the “natural.” Made during Video Pool’s Media Arts Residency (2019-2020) using the Apollo monitor and microscope camera.
Since launching our platform in 2017, VUCAVU has collaborated with several curators and arts organizations from across Canada to present film and media art programs. Each program includes a text exploring the themes addressed, and many also include recordings of roundtable discussions and artist talks for you to discover!
A resourceful young Métis man comes to the rescue of family, friends and strangers in this amusing short film.
A story of an elderly woman who puts on her jewelry. Each treasured piece brings a reminder of the life she once had, filled with ballet, love, freedom and joy. Her current reality fades and she is renewed in the world of her past.
Between heaven and earth, on a roof in Saint-Petersbourg, someone with a broken heart is thinking.
Barbara James is a thirty-something, single, hip and opinionated pregnant Black woman. Her life takes an eventful twist of fate when, one particularly ordinary day, she wakes up and realizes that her unborn baby has stopped moving
Spiritual sanctuary, sex, sisterhood and a gathering of faeries.
While posing for caricatures, strangers reveal themselves by sharing their diverse personal stories in rapid succession. This work explores the complexity of intimacy, identity and representation.
In an urban backyard a clown washes an oil-soaked owl.
Hand-processed Super8 film as a dialogue with your darkest self.
A team of beleaguered hockey players and a hybrid prizzly bear interact one bitterly cold night in the depths of winter in a desolate northern settlement.
For almost 40 years, Colette Whiten has quietly and powerfully challenged gender dynamics, political power and mass media imagery... This video portrait was commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts and the IMAA.
"Those That Will Come, Will Hear" constructs a portrait of the erosion of languages; a global phenomenon that is still largely unexplored. This exploratory film will be a way to discover the essence of First Nations and Inuit languages still spoken in Quebec via the richness of their unique sounds and the rendering of this inherent musicality into visual imagery.
Brown Town Muddy Water is a documentary about the Indigenous Musicians that lived, died, prospered and survived Winnipeg's notorious main street strip during the 1960’s.
Mikomiing is an Anishinaabe word for 'on the frozen water' a term often used when a commercial fisherman has gone out to check his nets. This documentary follows a day in the life of a fisherman in the First Nation community of Little Saskatchewan, Manitoba.
Two ersatz “Indian warriors” chase a beautiful Indian maiden through the streets of Winnipeg but she loves Chief Big Bear. Who is the hunter, and who the hunted in this tableaux?
Retro children’s TV takes a comical jab when one letter of the alphabet gets a new association.
Shot improvisationally in 2010, shortly after the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, this film takes a lyrical approach to examining recent history and the process of reconstruction in the post-war era.
On a hill, a girl re-imagines her journey of survival. Spoken word and layered visuals create an intense urban tale of personal transformation.
The re-imagination of the generational passage of traditional knowledge between a woman and her grandmother moon.
The story of a man lost in the Arctic during a blizzard and his mysterious rescuer
"Buried Traces" is an 8 minute experimental documentary exploring questions of Métis identity, cultural loss and renewal.
After Birth, an inter-generational journey to return to a ceremonial custom of burying the ‘after birth.’ Together three women and their kids walk the land and affirm their intergenerational knowledge and active presence in ancestral memories and matrilineal leadership.
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
An inventive exploration of the visceral nature of sound and how we learned to capture and reproduce it over time. Anchored by the discovery of the phonograph by the brilliant-and deaf-inventor Thomas Edison, this visual and conceptual collage of rich archival footage and animation playfully traces the birth of technological reproduction and the beginnings of our modern, audio-drenched world.
"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.
Covered, remixed, and sampled by hundreds of artists and fans alike, Creep by Radiohead is an epic 90s anthem of nihilism and self-loathing.
This film is available in French only.
A fun and imaginative stop-motion animation that examines the allure and consequences of stationery supplies.
The artist ponders the possibilities of reconciliation.
The performer attempts to apply make-up while wearing electro stimulators on both arms set to maximum power.
CHOKE examines the lack of oxygen in aquatic ecosystems as algae blooms emerge during spring thaw.
Produced for Much Music’s Word Up program, "What Does a Lesbian Look Like?" examines a plethora of big dyke stereotypes and embraces them. Performed by Shawna Dempsey and a whole whack of gals. Created by Dempsey and Millan.
A stain mysteriously appears on a woman’s clothes. Is it real? Is it dangerous? Where did it come from, and above all, how to get it out? Who is responsible for the anger that remains after an everyday sexual assault?
Only by looking back, there is an understanding of finding yourself on a moon-like space.
A daily regimen of green vitamins keeps the doctor away. A girl chews on little plastic soldiers, as prescribed.