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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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
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.
The VUCAVU team is growing: we welcome Yvette Sin, in the position of Digital Education Programming Assistant at VUCAVU. Yvette Sin is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and bookseller based in Toronto. Her award-winning short films have screened internationally, including at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth and TIFF Next Wave...
We are thrilled to announce that Axelle Demus has been hired as VUCAVU’s Educational Sector Outreach Consultant. Axelle is a FOCAS (Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support) postdoctoral fellow at McGill University’s School of Information Studies (archivalfocas.org)....
Manhattan Project Revisited" is a digital reconstruction of the Manhattan Project, where the first atomic bomb was created during the Second World War. This artwork recreates critical structures from its three main sites: Los Alamos - New Mexico, Oak Ridge - Tennessee, and Hanford - Washington.
The word ‘hyper’ is derived from the Greek ‘above, beyond or outside’. In mathematics, hyper is used as a prefix, to denote four or more dimensions. Specifically, this work explores the possibility of passing to a fourth dimension wherein perception of past, present, and future becomes more fluid. This video was created in residency at Studio 303 Interdisciplinary Performance Centre in Montreal.
Quel est ton paradis ?...
The surveillance video depicts the omnipresence of internalized social norms restricting the lives of many women living under the gaze of the rigid traditions.
The Lost Mariner is an animated interpretation of Dr. Oliver Sacks' case study found in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
Victoria, a young actress full of dreams, carefully prepares for an audition. She's to play a character with no name: Whore No. 2. However, the casting director turns her expectations sideways.
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.
Memories are bridges.
This piece was created as a self-portrait using clothing as a means of talking about the body, discomfort and futility.
Outside a school in the dust, in a windy vacant lot, in a muddy lake: these spaces influenced an energetic choreography created for the camera. The camera itself is incorporated and...
On a cold fall evening, Leila is left alone to tend the family convenience store. A series of strange clients keep her in a constant state of apprehension. Language and cultural barriers also contribute to the making of a nerve-racking evening.
Two imperfect women share one perfect body.
There are many memories of childhood that have slipped through the cracks. Most that I can recollect were of the differences in myself in comparison to the others around. Taken away at one week of age from my Indian community and given to a white foster family, my experience of the authentic Indian and where my placement is, within this dream of authenticity, comes from an infected locale.
A granddaughter embarks on a search for her grandfather's roots and finds much more.
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 celebration of the strength, wisdom, beauty and humour of Native women; of Native culture and people, surviving and thriving.
"A re-creation of my journey to the sweat lodge ceremony through sound image and narration."
Riverside Queerness reveals hard moments in the Prairies' shadowed queer history. Three storytellers navigate muddy waters that is Manitoba's subconsciousness; where truth is blurred by the power of the currents.
A displaced young girl, her overwhelmed older sister and the superhero that brings them together.
A video collage based on twenty-eight tracking shots of city scenes.
A distinct world – that is often an isolated part of a larger world – is viscerally envisioned in this uniquely hand- processed film.
Maiden Indian follows three women on a journey from the mall toward a deeper understanding of self.
A Johannesburg neighourhood unites five people’s ambitions, desires, and struggles to survive over the course of a Friday.
"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 place called home, a North End poem.
Trade is an experimental video short exploring concepts of borders and trade, and their relationship to notions of collective history and national identity in the North American colonial context.
Gerry Barret: The Original Aboriginal takes us from studio interview to the stage at Rumor’s Comedy Club and the Cat Sass Tavern. Gerry’s repertoire includes topics like: what should an Indian D.J. sound like on the radio?... A day in the life of Canada’s first native prime minister... a ballad to Elijah Harper and much more, including a stop at a movie shoot.
A video that examines the paradigm of misogyny, deeply rooted and internalized in our culture. The biblical story of Lot and a horrifying event that my grandfather experienced, forced me to consider my own responsibility and lack of innocence.
A gay man speaks about his body image and growing older in the age of the internet.
"Un jour au camp Francosurvie" is a documentary that follows a group of youths (18-24) during their time at a French language summer camp in Maskwa Manitoba.
The historic establishment of the northernmost mosque in the western hemisphere.
In this Maxi-Mexi-Melancolour short, the widow Paramo attempts to prevent further familial tragedy.
Tundrunning is part of a larger project titled Erlking of a malevolent figure whose beguiling power pulls us inextricably in; calling the unsuspecting traveler to her fate in the depths of the wilderness.
In the stories of adoption, the mothers who gave birth were invisible. Exiled Mothers takes us on the artist Sharon Alward’s journey to recover her own repressed, secret, shaming memories from relinquishing her daughter in 1971.
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!
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.