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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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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 presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
A young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Inkster’s beautiful fiction references the destruction of Africville on the outskirts of Halifax in 1969. Four characters speak directly to the came ra about their lives and sexuality. This use of direct address says docu mentary, but the actors speak Inkster’s bittersweet words.
The fear of bridges.
A Chinese Canadian woman goes to China for the first time, as part of a package tour.
Khoa Lê chronicles his trip to Vietnam, visiting his remote family for the end of the year festivities.
Short visits a large furry convention and shoots some amazing creatures. Short is fascinated by the identity politics and history surround this community which are very similar to the transgender community.
A reflection on distance, grief and memory, through the landscapes...
A Xerox animation over a phone call with a friend.
This version of the classic tale is explored through the internal narrative of Red Riding Hood herself. She is consumed with overwhelming anxiety about everything in her personal life and surrounding environment. Instead of being a comfort, Grandma’s house becomes the site of her resignation to events when fatigue eventually sets in. Visually playful, the main character changes from finger puppet to paper cut out, to human actor, while her inner self remains constant.
This playful, animated documentary portrays the charming, yodeling farmer with humour and wit and “looks the way yodeling sounds.”
The bittersweet story of strongman and magician Mike Swistun who, for thirty days in 1923, was the strongman with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
An excerpt from the feature length film "A GOOD MADNESS - The Dance of Rachel Browne" celebrating the life and work of choreographer and founder of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, Rachel Browne.
Follow Jackie through the 1960s Toronto Yonge Street music scene, the tabloid rumours and scandals, to the mysterious disappearance. What ever happened to Jackie Shane? You have to watch to find out.
In the single-channel video "Hybred", artist Christine Kirouac translates a conversation with her mother into an exploration of the stereotypes and subjectivities surrounding her Métis identity (Cree/Irish).
The re-imagination of the generational passage of traditional knowledge between a woman and her grandmother moon.
"Bloodstorm" considers the paralells between the unpredictability of a storm and the turmoil of living with HIV/AIDS.
A granddaughter embarks on a search for her grandfather's roots and finds much more.
The artist ponders the possibilities of reconciliation.
A spoken word poem and minimalist audio track about a sexy highland stream, a love letter to the beauty found in nature, and the mysterious way beauty is suffused in the natural world, written in English and Anishinaabemowin.
a Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWGs)
Longboy outs himself as a First Nations FAG - who is living with HIV - hoping to sever attached preconception of two spirited peoples. In a contemplative search, the artist recollects how HIV/AIDS has affected him and his surrounding community, revealing a strength through loss.
A woman reconnects with her grandmother's past through drawings done by Daphne Odjig
Check out granny's bingo card collection and more on everybody's favourite morning show, coming to you from Darryl's basement and over your local cable television network.
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.
A couple of uber-goths ride the public transit to the mall to buy more lipstick, but the subtext! Pain, suffering and eternal damnation wrapped in velvety angst. It’s sunny outside, but dark in their souls!
Strange dreamy landscapes hides emotional moods and states of transitions through thick textures and VHS glitches.
Trying to revisit her pre-baby days by taking a trip to China, the filmmaker realize how much she has changed.
Afro hair goes Beyond Curls & Kinks
In a Montreal high school, 9 young students with atypical paths are brought together around a drama-therapy project which aims at providing a voice to marginalized groups.
A young woman enters a crisis on the eve of her 19th birthday as she realizes she is about to out-age her older sister who died at 18.
Nature fights back. The narrative of debris/detritus realizes an ‘out of control’ consumerism despite the green campaign’s noble efforts to curtail pollution through recycling. Fashioning protective gear out of the debris, the animals return the ubiquitous plastic bags and bottles to us. Debris/detritus is a cautionary tale that puts the blame where it squarely belongs, reminding us that we are affecting the environments of others as well as our own because of an addiction to ‘lifestyle’.
Trois départs: Montréal, Longueuil, Rivière du Loup, trois contingents, une même destination, l’Assemblée nationale à Québec. Plus d’un millier de femmes ont marché contre la pauvreté.
At times painful and disturbing, Still Sane's overriding theme is ultimately one of defiance and survival: we can maintain our choices, even in the face of literally mind-numbing oppression.
Une œuvre méditative et esthétiquement achevée qui plonge au cœur de la guerre qui fait rage depuis 20 ans au nord de l’Ouganda. Quand la forme se met au service de la dénonciation.
Since airplanes did not exist, people moved around using prayers, they went from one land to another and returned early, before dawn. In old audio recordings, the voices of pastors speak of the mythical existence of witches and their travels. In the daily life of a woman the magic of her tales begin to materialize as night falls. Night is the time when travel is possible.
An examination of three weeds - dandelion, coltsfoot, and goldenrod and each weed’s direct effects on film stock via hand-processing with eco-processing techniques.