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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’s Digital Collections Assistant will perform tasks associated with bilingual communications, marketing, web content management, and other administrative tasks as needed. ** VUCAVU acknowledges the Government of Canada's Canada Summer Jobs program for their support of this position.
We are proud to announce the launch of Desire Lines: Experimental Video as Social and Spatial Interventions in the GIV Collection. This bilingual educational guide was produced as part of the Through Feminist Lenses: Video Works at Groupe Intervention Vidéo Case Study, and is a collaboration between A/CA, Groupe Intervention Video (GIV), the Moving Image Research Lab (MIRL) at McGill, and VUCAVU. .
VUCAVU is delighted to launch three new programs in the Educational Guide series from Archive/Counter-Archive (A/CA); 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.
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 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.
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 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.
Two sisters attempt to find common understanding amidst bickering.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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!
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 group of Vietnamese nationals is making their way to an unknown location in a shipping container to find a better life.
Since launching our platform in 2017, VUCAVU has collaborated with several curators and arts organizations from across Canada to present film and media art programs. Each program includes a text exploring the themes addressed, and many also include recordings of roundtable discussions and artist talks for you to discover!
An elderly man living with dementia invites an unexpected guest over for lunch.
A home movie of Cree woman hunting is saved from being lost forever, but how does it compare to official Canadian history of northern Manitoba?
A Xerox animation over a phone call with a friend.
A young mother looks to connect with her Aboriginal culture in order to teach her children.
Retro children’s TV takes a comical jab when one letter of the alphabet gets a new association.
Afro hair goes Beyond Curls & Kinks
Irreverent homage to the city of my birth.
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.
Exploring the legacy of the Indian Residential School system by looking at its history, present conditions and hopes for the future.
Trying to revisit her pre-baby days by taking a trip to China, the filmmaker realize how much she has changed.
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.
Fotdella follows Ryan Baer, a Canadian street musician - influenced by San Francisco one-man-band legend Jesse Fuller - as he constructs instruments from salvaged junk and performs in markets, ragtag parades, beach towns and underground spaces.
From the heart of the planet’s slums and squats, individuals have taken over these marginalized worlds and erected cities in their own image.
After years of repression, an old woman's common sense goes head-to-head with the fantastic imagination of her inner child, who yearns to be free.
She Draws a Circle reflects on the work of generations of women to interrupt cycles of violence and oppression, looking to the ways in which our spiritual connections to the land and one another help us to hold space for regenerative healing, bringing the hidden to light drawing on that light to encircle each successive generation.
A granddaughter embarks on a search for her grandfather's roots and finds much more.
One Story was originally produced as part of the Community Play “Travois” in 1994. It is a look into the various complicated and overlapping stories that inform the current urban and traditional culture of the First Nations peoples. The questionable politics that dictate Status and the paternalism of Treaty Days are juxtaposed with the pow wow, the voice of graffiti and the street.
A distinct world – that is often an isolated part of a larger world – is viscerally envisioned in this uniquely hand- processed film.
NIN E TEPUEIAN - MY CRY is a documentary tracks the journey of Innu poet, actress and activist, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, at a pivotal time in her career as a committed artist.
A one take super 8 film, that explores the nature of the cowboys and Indian myth perpetuated by wide screen Hollywood movies.
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 deeply intimate look at the frightening realities of food insecurity in First Nations communities.
High Altitude explores what it means to be an Indigenous artist in the modern world.
Aliens have landed. Colonization? Again?!
An ambient track of evening sounds accompanies rephotographed sketches of the night sky by Jerry Spevak. “The Observatory” turns the heavens on its head: the blackness of space becomes the white of the page, the stars and galaxies precise points of black graphite.
No two adoptees are alike. Harold & Peter, Lynne & Lynn, Maureen & Stephen and Dana candidly share their stories and reveal how being adopted shapes an individual’s identity right into adulthood.
In my video “Spring” I evoke the emotion of spring, where the bleakness of winter cracks open to the fragile but unstoppable bounty of springtime hope. I am playing with the flat surface of video and keeping the consciousness of the square and rectangle format. I am also subtly kaleidoscoping one's vision of the world as one's hope opens up. I have set a basic narrative structure of first comes love and then comes babies with the metaphor of the tree of life, the family tree.
Gay dating in a nutshell.
"Good Citizen: Betty Baker" follows a civic-minded housewife as she tracks the missing Prince Phillip. This madcap chase takes our heroine Betty from our neighbor's trash, to a strangely exciting all-girls bar, to the arms of a handsome lady golfer. Cherry pie never looked so good.
Super 8 images of places and of people gazing into the camera.
"Remote Sensing" is an exploration of the canon of sensations. The video pushes the limits of sensation and defines the detached way we gather information and adapt to fresh information. Or rather, how we react to over-stimulation.
A young woman experiences heavy nostalgic trauma, as she purges herself from the materiality of her past. Fair Trade is a story of one woman's quest for a psychedelic transformation in an age of overconsumption and greed. With this animation, Supnet questions the value of our memories, especially those that are the by products of commercialism and capital.
Numb, questions Kanata’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, allowing the viewer to contemplate the next 150 year relationship.
Reflections on life... A comingling of the known and unknown.
Danger is a cautionary tale of the omnipresent Mao-era type of control system still in place in China, in which officials exercise power over every aspect of an individual’s life.
A traveller on the metro finds herself in a state of suspension while transferring between stations. Personal security and freedom of movement vie for private space in a public place.