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.
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.
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!
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
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.
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.
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.
A female firefighter takes her daughter along for a day on the job.
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.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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.
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)....
A woman deals with the death of her mother through self-annihilating tendencies.
One woman’s very personal story about her journey from hardship in Zimbabwe through the rigours of the immigration process to Canada.
Fiddling Neurons tells the artist’s experience with seeing her grandfather struggle with and eventually succumb to Alzheimer’s disease.
Shot in one take, two teen girls interact with a life-size bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi in shadow of the under-construction, controversial Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg, Canada.
The intermittently heard voice-over talks about a woman's self-awareness - being unable to know if she has really changed or not. The images are esoteric and hard to interpret: young women in black in various urban settings, something moving rhythmically. A personal, yet intriguing film.
Watch in awe as Miss Edmonton Teenburger 1983 graces the screen in her first featurette, IT'S PARTY TIME! A story as layered as her hair, as ethereal as her style. A pop explosion of Ukranian delight that will leave you bedazzled. Are you ready?
Employing a simple three-part structure, PATH is about personal experience and the interpretation of that experience.
What exactly is a sissy? Sissy explores masculinity, gender identity, misogyny and self-acceptance.
Judder is a stop motion animation detailing the lives of characters in a fractured reality, which is functioning at different frame rates.
A girl with a hula hoop becomes a goldfish becomes the Earth itself.
A walk through the city of Maputo becomes a poetic visual essay. Inspired by two Mozambican poems, its central themes are: shoes, time, space, history, humanity, reading the asphalt and the intrusive effect of a camera. Scenes from everyday life and a series of portraits link with radio loops and local ambiance sound.
St. John the Baptist, Performance/ Installation with video- 4 monitors and video projection "One may not be capable of loving, except for loving someone who loves." –Baudrillard.
Perspectives on Western Canadian Métis culture.
Maiden Indian follows three women on a journey from the mall toward a deeper understanding of self.
A woman reconnects with her grandmother's past through drawings done by Daphne Odjig
Found film from the future. The last human on Earth wonders "why make a film".
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.
Shot on Bolex, and hand-processed, the short film documents the steps of creating an oil painting. Narrated by rural Manitoba artist Vivian Paschke.
A portrait of visual artist Rebecca Belmore.
In 1943, within a few days, 25 people died at the Qarmaarjuit camp, on Baffin Island, Nunavut, which is over half of the population of this Inuit community. Two survivors from this tragedy, Ruth and Elisapie, return to the location to pay final respects to their family.
Paths is a vibrant trip across the globe, painting an atypical portrait of humanity.
It’s the Lone Ranger Show!
Canadian Time 2 builds upon a 2006 Kirouac performance underwent at the Rijksakademie (Netherlands) where she painted time signatures on the wall in the hours awaiting the results of her program eligibility. In 2011, she translates a similar, yet more pronounced set of circumstances in a performance executed at the Receiver Festival in Charleston, SC. Alluding to the twelve-hour drive from her home in North Carolina to the Canadian border, she marries painting and tragi-comic theatre in a perfor
From the heart of the planet’s slums and squats, individuals have taken over these marginalized worlds and erected cities in their own image.
"Beneath the Earth" marks the first in a series of works investigating the language of dreams and the cycles of life. Following the birth of her daughter, the artist addresses her fears and anxiety as a parent with a new found sense of mortality.
The camera scans a woman’s body in microscopic detail. A voice-over asks such questions as, “what is the dividing line between the public and the private?”.
This video, comprised solely of one edit, is a quick peek into the reality of two video makers; video production, sex and poverty. The chatter of these lovers is the day-to-day experience of love, love as sustainable companionship. This is an average moment, perhaps one of the forgettable conversations that comprise and define our lives. Here is a man and a woman sitting on the front step on a summer evening. The Front Step is a collaboration between Brenna George and Rick Fisher.
'Undone' explores the troubled language of the tactile body.
After Birth, an inter-generational journey to return to a ceremonial custom of burying the ‘after birth.’ Together three women and their kids walk the land and affirm their intergenerational knowledge and active presence in ancestral memories and matrilineal leadership.
After more than 100 years of restless colonialism, the Dene People strive to reconnect with the land they live on.
‘Video Home System’ traces the convergence of popular culture and politics in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. This video showcases the connections between pop culture and nationalism, and how bootleg economies kept the cinema industry alive during periods of censorship.
A young boy must face a future without his father.
Skin Deep leads us into worlds where people are never what they appear to be.
An incident at the fridge. Some floozy, a gal in waiting, a gal in a camisole, a guy in a dress, a gal in a kilt, and a gal in charge.
An elderly man living with dementia invites an unexpected guest over for lunch.
Do you like your body?
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.