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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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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
A presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
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 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 young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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: PORN Dossier. The envelope and folders are opened and the contents examined.
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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
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)....
On an island off the coast of Washington, a Pentecostal camp counsellor finds two fugitives from El Salvador trying to cross the border into Canada. Over the course of a long day, she must decide whether she can -- or will -- help them. Meanwhile, at her summer cottage, a woman and her son spy on them with a drone, and this conflict ends in calamity.
An examination of how art and truth come into conflict at the trial of a young man accused of rape.
Christian is at death’s doorstep. Peacefully, he shares his last thoughts.
A woman paints with her vagina to please the art hungry masses that crowd her gallery and her life.
"This film is available in French only.Use the Search or Explore site tools to select non-dialogue or English-language films and videos." Sur un toit, une photographe croque le paysage. Soudain, un homme entre dans le champs de la caméra et la dérange. Que se passe-t-il ensuite?
Six teenagers go through their first emotional flutters. Boy-girl relationships, friendship, first love butterflies in the stomach, body changes, sexuality… Why is everything so complicated?
Que valent les efforts déployés pour améliorer les conditions de vie de ces femmes et de ces fillettes, sans une gestion efficace de l'eau potable?
« Collage » des images publicitaires du « féminin ». L'enchaînement des images déconstruit le modèle irréel de la femme que la publicité véhicule dans les revues « féminines » et dans les annonces télévisées.
A short drag video about becoming a businessman in public for a day.
In this cautionary romance about life in the editing suite, the short monologue reminds us that, in the end, even the most advanced technology is usually handheld.
Themes of women's stories, power, and transgression are woven throughout the narrative depicted in this video work.
This work is a fantasy of freedom, in which a stroll in the park gives rise to an opening up of unstable sexual codes, shifting identities and the empowering game of come and go.
The forbidden love between an Owl and a Fox drives them away from friends and family as they search for happiness together.
"Americano" is filmmaker Carlos Ferrand’s road-movie about his trip through the Americas from Patagonia to the Arctic.
Five lifelong friends. Four are fearful of their future. One must face the fact that she may not have one.
The 1990 Oka crisis from the perception of a child and performed by the survivors, 25 years later.
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.
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
A touching tribute to a life cut short too early.
WÎSKACÂN is an experimental contemporary dance film utilizing Bunraku-style tabletop puppetry and object performance. Video, Puppet Design, Performance, and Music by Tyson Houseman. This project was made as part of Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals initiative, and I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
A woman reconnects with her grandmother's past through drawings done by Daphne Odjig
A girl with the power to heal conducts a ceremony that attracts a shapeshifter.
A lively look at the lives and musical roots of Aboriginal women from across North America.
Inspiration for this video came from Winona's dogs Kai and Tojo, their playful attitudes and the joy they bring to her life.
Filmmaker documents his mother making culture bread, Bannock.
Shiro Yagi is an experimental animated film, inspired by the last sheet of existing music of the artist’s maternal grandfather.
"Death by Popcorn" follows the ill-fated Jets through their many travails with arch-enemies Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers, soul-crushing NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and many other agents of Winnipeg annihilation. Sadness on ice.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
The eponymous narrator (a ghost in the form of a coconut) resists a singular place and time, moving freely, if not lightly, through personal photographs, contemporary commentary and archival material.
A woman daydreams in the Winnipeg winter, and discovers the Don Juan within. Don Juan, as a woman, gives us glimpses of her life with a collection of cross-dressers, unlikely saints and martyrs. Don Juan becomes a martyr for women’s pleasure. Actors in this video are Shawna Dempsey, Lorri Millan, Rebecca Popoff, Erika MacPherson and Lori Weidenhammer.
This is a film that touches on my thoughts about growing up. I wanted to use things that I think we're appealing to my eye.
As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self. Wash Day is an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one's outwardly appearance.
An ode to my daily environment.
A manuscript, written in 1954 to aid missionaries working among the Cree speaking natives of northern Saskatchewan, Canada, is the basis for this reflective narrative.
Year by year, the “Canadian” style of pronunciation is challenged by a deluge of U.S.A. media. By peering into the mists of his own childhood, Ferris presents a tongue-in-cheek look at what our alphabet may once have been -- with subliminal Canadiana thrown in for good measure.
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.