We're sorry, but our site requires Javascript to be enabled. If you would like instructions on how to enable Javascript, please click here.
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.
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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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: 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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amidst a biodiverse wasteland on the brink of being enveloped by encroaching bitumen, the enigmatic Beast of the Earth materializes in a prophetic dance.
A distinct world – that is often an isolated part of a larger world – is viscerally envisioned in this uniquely hand- processed film.
After his family's untimely demise in 1945, George Bassler bizarrely crafts a perpetual motion machine.
A middle-aged poet delivers his own sad "Howl".
Originally a multichannel video installation at the Royal Ontario Museum, Archaeology and You contemplates fallen empires, language and the motivating power of fear.
A percussionist gets the chance to lead a renowned orchestra in a world premiere performance.
An artist explores a tormented emotional landscape hidden deep in his memories.
...stepped solitude of a shoe cobbler drifting in absence
Snow Search finds four performers searching for each other, each carrying one quarter of a photographic portrait of Michael Snow. A lyrical exploration through the city and an homage to Michael Snow.
They Met In A Garden is an exploration and analysis of the archetypal romantic love story.
The act of creating work is often seen as magical and sacred. The realities of diving into the process are anything but.
Successions of tableaux that offer a metaphoric look at nuptial images.
No Safe Words was created at the UBC Thunder Stadium to be broadcast on a JumboTron screen during Toronto’s 2008 Pride Parade and festivities.
Let the House of Venus take you on a freaky ride in a funhouse of the bizarre and horrific.
"The Magus" is a multi-format, process-based experimental film that explores the root of artistic creation.
A further examination of self-commodification in the form of a bizarre info-mercial. "What if we invented someone... at a time when resistance and change were becoming paradoxicallyincorpor-related?...
A woman is dragged through an empty field in scenario reminiscent of horror movies and news stories. But she is alert, impassive, and remains vigilantly focused on the camera. This hand-processed, Super 8 film juxtaposes degraded, awkwardly-staged footage of every woman's worst nightmare with an interior monologue regarding media representation of sexualized violence. The piece asks how violent, misogynist images play out in our psyches and in our culture. The film was commissioned by 8fest, To
Aliens have landed. Colonization? Again?!
Meet Montreal's Mambo Drag Kings, a dapper group of lip synching lesbians who entertain in style.
Gay dating in a nutshell.
In the near future, a teenage girl attends a virtual reality school.
Première manifestation de l'artiste en Femme toupie, cette oeuvre explore le mouvement comme stratégie de déstabilisation de la normalité.
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.
“fagtactics” is an homage to Barbara Hammer's splendid and sexy “Dyketactics” and begs the question: so what ARE those faggots doing on the train tracks?
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.
High Altitude explores what it means to be an Indigenous artist in the modern world.
Numb, questions Kanata’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, allowing the viewer to contemplate the next 150 year relationship.
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.
Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.
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.
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.
“The Script” presents a collage of revealing moments pulled from material in the Prelinger Archives, an online collection of over 11,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial and amateur) films made between the 1910s – 1980s.
It's New Year's Eve in Tijuana, Mexico.
a Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWGs)
A look at how the community of Lake St. Martin First Nation was destroyed and displaced by water management policy.
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.