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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.
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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.
This internship offers hands-on experience working on an innovative project that is at the intersection of digital strategy for the arts and education sectors. The successful candidate will perform tasks associated with communications, outreach, educational online program development, marketing, web content management and other tasks as needed. Application deadline: September 2, 2025 (End of day)
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.
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 presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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.
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: CENSORSHIP dossier. The envelope and folders are opened and the contents examined.
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.
"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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
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.
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 young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Since the launch of the VUCAVU platform in 2016, we have collaborated with artists, educators, and arts organizations across the country to present a wide variety of independent Canadian films and video art online. Artists are always compensated for the dissemination of their works, and the artworks can often be rented individually for VOD viewing after the programming free period has expired. Programs are always accompanied by bilingual curatorial texts exploring the themes addressed in the selection, and many of them also include recordings of roundtable discussions and conversations with the artists!
From the heart of the planet’s slums and squats, individuals have taken over these marginalized worlds and erected cities in their own image.
“This work is an interaction of the space, the symbols and the historical context in which I live as a woman on this side of the continent. It is a rosary of alarm, eternal and circular; the alarm of a woman who desires life, light, truth, and solidarity, but who instead sees and receives death and fear. It is a rejection of all that is destruction, and death, yet is depicted almost attractively as innocence.” - Gloria Camiruaga
This video is available in French only. Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos.
The re-imagination of the generational passage of traditional knowledge between a woman and her grandmother moon.
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.
When human souls break up, they seem irreconcilable. Is there an antidote for heartbreak?
Several reflections on Franco-Manitoban identity in Winnipeg and its relationship with the French language.
An endearing portrait of a South Asian father as he attempts to give life and marital advice to his bodybuilding and image-obsessed son. This deeply touching, comedic short film is an autobiographical piece that stars the director’s own father.
With lyrics by Nishnaabeg poet Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, How to Steal a Canoe tells the story of a young Nishnaabeg woman and an old Nishnaabeg man rescuing a canoe from a museum and returning it to the lake where it was meant to be.
A ritual of grief and expiation, "August" looks to the sky as a means to connect to the infinity of creation and the source of awareness. Mystics believe that the awareness of this unity may be sufficient to carry us through our most difficult times. The artist reflects on her past as she contemplates her impending mortality.
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.
Can a rock band be the village that raises a child? We follow internationally acclaimed Montreal band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, which has accepted a baby into its touring tribe.
High Altitude explores what it means to be an Indigenous artist in the modern world.
"The Law Is in the Seed" is a video of a poem by the same name written by Alex Jacobs, a Mohawk Indian poet from Akwesasne (New York State).
It started with a shot in a back alley, rage and frustration. It ended with a rap video about intolerance. Produced through the Aboriginal Teen Video Initiative.
Hand-drawn illustrations animate this touching personal story about the "60’s Scoop” of Aboriginal children into the Canadian child-welfare system.
Métis Femme Bodies returns the narratives to those who have had their voices muted and cultures stolen from them.
A young Aboriginal girl's hopes and dreams are re-negotiated within the walls and tunnels of the institution of education.
Métis, Métis Not is a video documentation of the filmmaker’s lack of relationship with her cultural background
Filmmaker documents his mother making culture bread, Bannock.
After more than 100 years of restless colonialism, the Dene People strive to reconnect with the land they live on.
Home deals with the conflicting worlds of Aboriginal people, the view of the urban Aboriginal and the view of the rural Aboriginal.
The story of a man lost in the Arctic during a blizzard and his mysterious rescuer
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.
This film is available in French only. Use the "Search" or "Explore" site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos.
The Dead Zone (2.5 min.,1985): Images, repetitive in visual completion, combine with a popular music track and self-acknowledging voice-over to form a void of numbed loneliness and dissatisfaction. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”
EXPOSURE is an experimental documentary that explores issues of race, sexuality and cultural identity. A dialogue between two lesbians of colour (Japanese-Canadian and Afro-Caribbean women) is intercut with photographs, texts, paintings and voice-over.
A study of light and shadows on a late summer afternoon
Sunburst is the space between thoughts when consciousness slides easily into a liminal horizon. Washes of layers remember to breathe and remind the breath to let go, to follow the flow, then let go again.
A girl with the power to heal conducts a ceremony that attracts a shapeshifter.
This short film combines two opposite contexts of social interactions, one being life-size rock em' sock em’ boxing footage at a seedy cowboy bar, and the other a refined tea party for two set against the dramatic fall forest.
A lively look at the lives and musical roots of Aboriginal women from across North America.
Taekwondo first emerged as a martial art in Korea in the 1950s. Today, it is taught worldwide as shown here in a elementary school gymnasium in Montreal.
Inspired by the 8mm app, Garland's Quiet Steps is an instrumental music video of the artist's experience of living in Vancouver.
Obraumche is a Plautdietsch word that refers to the centre, most delicious part of watermelon. In this work, the artist forms a drain clog, and then works to find its “Obraumche”. Instead of dealing with the delicious, this work is an interplay of gross textures resulting from the body’s activities.
Growing old together.
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!