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.
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.
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.
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.
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 young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why would anyone want to go to the beach during the day?
"This film is available in French only. Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos." In 1970, Hungarian-Québécois photographer Gabor Szilasi set out for the Charlevoix region of Québec to photograph the last vestiges of a disappearing rural world.
Picariello and Lassandro investigates the real-life story of Filumena “Florence” Lassandro and Emilio Picariello, Italian immigrants who were convicted and hanged in 1923 for the murder of an Alberta Provincial Police officer.
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.
Artist talk with Basil AlZeri
A constructed cinematic space where life and death exist.
An impressionistic elegy for Otto Weininger, Vienna's most infamous self-hating Jew.
A simple action is transformed through film into an emotive, voyeuristic piece.
A personal comedic documentary about a filmmaker's outlandish experiences working on a Guy Maddin film.
This work is created under the aesthetic of a baroque video-mural, dealing with the idea of martyrdom. In the work there are two melting ice-cream self-portraits that are framing two girl twins dressed in satin dresses moving in a prayer-like manner. Glamour and decadence are intertwined. The sound is of sacred operatic music.
Première manifestation de l'artiste en Femme toupie, cette oeuvre explore le mouvement comme stratégie de déstabilisation de la normalité.
Compiled with images of storefronts of beauty parlors and barber shops from Chinatown and the Lower East Side on New York City, the video takes the viewer into the almost mythical hair culture of the local community. Accompanied by a soundtrack of "Heart Sutra" chanting from a Buddhist monastery, "Hair Cuts" explores the interior of human hearts through the architectural mapping of sites seen.
“Transforming FAMILY” jumps directly into an ongoing conversation among trans people about parenting. It's a beautiful snapshot of current issues, struggles and strengths of transexual, transgender and gender fluid parents (and parents-to-be) in North American society today.
A weakening ganglord regains the grip over his children when he is visited by the ghost of his father. The ghost then collects his "generational fees."
TWO/DOH is an evocative poetic pastiche exploring the public and private spaces of desire, and its intersection with the cultural and erotic connections between two women of different origins: Persian/Armenian and South Asian/Sri Lankan.
A year of pictures mash into an intense viewing experience.
There are things in life you never forget. One of them, like it or not, is "The Talk".
A powerful and intensely moving document of a community vigil for Islan Nettles, a transgender Womyn of Colour, concerning her spirit and life.
Let the House of Venus take you on a freaky ride in a funhouse of the bizarre and horrific.
Dans une grande majorité de sociétés, reconnaître une filiation à un couple, c’est lui donner la possibilité de se perpétuer et de faire partie de l’histoire humaine. Quand on refuse la filiation aux homosexuels, on leur refuse le droit de faire partie de l’histoire humaine. Ce qui est particulier au Québec...
Georgette, the resident fag hag, hatches a plan to get rid of a rival, but the outcome is not what she had anticipated…
“Akin” marks the first creative collaboration between Toronto-based artist Chase Joynt (Everyday to Stay) and NYC-based filmmaker Brooke Sebold (Red Without Blue). With haunting suburban visuals backed by the rich sounds of Toronto based-band Ohbijou, “Akin” powerfully engages in a relationship between an Orthodox Jewish mother and her transgender son as they navigate silent secrets of a shared past.
One of his first videos, Gonick”s Exit/Portal explores subcultural ritual and violence in a short video that references the work of fellow “Queerpunk” artists Pier Paulo Pasolini and Derek Jarman.
September 2013. The Court ruling is reached. Almost a quarter million Dominicans of Haitian descent have just become stateless because of the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal’s decision.
A short video featuring composited imagery with themes of the transitory nature of moments in time, the ephemeral passing of everyday mundane experiences, and dealing with loss.
Video collage that approaches memory and how we remember, by overlaying images and sound, to create a disorienting moment in time.
A short film on the subject of Indigenous Love. What is (romantic) love? And what does it mean to you? 8 couples share their thoughts
Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
Treaty X features an audio track and a layering of composited video footage with themes of connection/disconnection to land and waters, treaty rights, and the way capitalism monetizes nature. The Treaty #3 territory comprises 55,000 hectares of land, and annuity payments of $5 have never been adjusted for inflation.
High Altitude explores what it means to be an Indigenous artist in the modern world.
“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.
This intricate stop-motion animation interlaces Canada’s colonial past with writer-director Amanda Strong’s personal family history — and illuminates Cree, Métis, and Anishinaabe reclamation of culture, language, and Nationhood. (Danis Goulet, TIFF)
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.
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.