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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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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Spirit Bear's friends teach him about residential schools and how he can help with reconciliation!
"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.
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.
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.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
A young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
Amidst a biodiverse wasteland on the brink of being enveloped by encroaching bitumen, the enigmatic Beast of the Earth materializes in a prophetic dance.
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.
A 70s TV sitcom set around a young group of artists.
A boreal forest, in the fall. A man wearing a face mask is on the watch. Camouflaged in the bush, he holds his gun at the ready. Is he a serial killer or just a trophy hunter? He’s neither. He’s an artist waiting for an animal and that elusive moment when the image for a work will come to him.
A woman creates a runway to fly up into the "clear blue" above an endless landscape.
A portrait of bombastic film producer Greg Klymkiw, who was a major player in the DIY Winnipeg film scene of the 1980s and was instrumental in launching Guy Maddin's career.
A lone figure travels an internal landscape haunted by mistakes of the past.
The result of a collaboration between artists Nahed Mansour and Kandis Friesen, this work is based on the original footage from an unrealized documentary found at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives in Winnipeg Manitoba.
Through a triptych, which treats 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.
There are places that we seek, and there are places that find us.
A squirrel ponders the essence of time.
Galvanized by the opportunity promised by the looming North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a shy and idealistic Winnipeg artist seeks fame and fortune in the USA. Heading for the international border on the notorious "Night Bus to Fargo", she meets a host of hinterland hopefuls also making a break for the great cultural supermarket south of the 49th.
After 15 years of living in Montréal, Hind returns to Morocco, her country of origin.
Commentaire corporel, visuel et sonore sur l’accélération du rythme de vie et sur notre devoir d’être sans cesse performants, actifs et productifs.
The film focuses on the social ecology of Highway 59, the road to the Beaconia Research Station in Manitoba.
In Frankfurt near St. Peter's church on Klaus-Mann-Platz, there is a memorial with an angel sculpture (aka Frankfurter Engel) for the homosexual men and women persecuted and murdered during the Third Reich.
“Dear Sis, I am sitting on the subway and all of a sudden, I have this urge to write to you...”, here begins an apology letter written from one sister to another. Starting with the issue of sibling rivalry, the video is a simple and straightforward examination of the connection and the distinction between one person and the next in the world we live in -- talking us further into the greater subject of humanity.
Récit ironique d'un corps qui a perdu toute maîtrise sur son visage...
Using the metaphor of suburban architecture, "Homogeneity" archly critiques the desire for conformity within the/our queer community.
Produced for Much Music’s Word Up program, "What Does a Lesbian Look Like?" examines a plethora of big dyke stereotypes and embraces them. Performed by Shawna Dempsey and a whole whack of gals. Created by Dempsey and Millan.
Eddy, a psychic, nervous, little satyr and part-time on-line sex worker, makes crafts with viewers as he speaks about the pain of witnessing sexual violence.
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?...
Dawn tells the story of two strangers who have more in common than they first realize. After Tye detects what he considers a racist glance from another passenger on the evening train home, a confrontation ensues. Tye is shocked to discover that they share something big, and both men are forced to face their prejudices in ways they never expected.
"You're just a woman.... smile and relax."
"This film is available in French only. Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos." Un jeune homme rend visite à sa mère pour lui présenter sa femme.
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.
"The Way We Are" shares excerpts of stories from audio interviews with 4 queer Asian women living in Toronto: Katherine Chun, Wenda Li, Tamai Kobayashi, and Nancy Seto. Told in the present-tense, these stories are arranged in a way that explores the past as the present, and in doing so, immersing viewers into the real-lived experiences from a different generation.
Is the word “Indian” a label for Canadian Aboriginals to reject or reclaim?
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.
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
Gaawiin Gego [Got No Nothing] is based on a rhyme in Ojibwe that my great aunt taught me, the lyrics reference the blues and a Nina Simone song. The audio track is layered over top of found video footage from Lac Des Mille Lacs, which is the lake beside our Reserve
"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 group of Vietnamese nationals is making their way to an unknown location in a shipping container to find a better life.
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.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
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.
“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.
Grand Chief Sheila North investigates unsolved murder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
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.