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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.
The VUCAVU team, in consultation with our content partners, have made the decision to slowly shut down our view-on-demand (VOD) services on our platform to make way for a new direction in our operations. VOD changes will occur on VUCAVU over the coming months. As we make changes to the platform with our developers, we will periodically update this page and share news in our regular communications.
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.
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.
"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.
As he is making a didgeridoo, Bernard Bosa tells us what vibration is for him, what it has done in his life.
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.
Clash of cultures, care of the elderly and four women trying to make sense of their unravelling family, this is Mum Singh.
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.
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.
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.
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 presentation for filmmakers and artists with VUCAVU.com’s Digital Programming Intern, Stephanie Poruchnyk-Butler.
A young loner struggles to make connection at a haunted summer camp.
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!
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 one take Super 8 snapshot of the inception and obsolescence of a Winnipeg landmark.
"Francophone-hybride" is a short documentary that was shot in Winnipeg during the Festival du voyageur, an annual winter festival which celebrates Manitoba’s Metis, Francophone and First Nations heritage.
Oh Canada - Oh Covid documents the opening days of the coronavirus pandemic in Ottawa, Ontario Canada.
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.
An endearing portrait of a South Asian father as he attempts to give life and marital advice to his bodybuilding and image-obsessed son. This deeply touching, comedic short film is an autobiographical piece that stars the director’s own father.
An intimate look at Martha Fleming and Lyne Lapointe’ s work, and more specifically Materia Prima, a project for the abandoned garden of an historical landmark in Sao Paulo, Brasil.
Récit ironique d'un corps qui a perdu toute maîtrise sur son visage...
A lively look at the lives and musical roots of Aboriginal women from across North America.
A stain mysteriously appears on a woman’s clothes. Is it real? Is it dangerous? Where did it come from, and above all, how to get it out? Who is responsible for the anger that remains after an everyday sexual assault?
I am the only one...
A fast-paced edit of diverse images, a rich mosaic of surface textures, architecture, peacocks and swans, faces and bodies...
For Ed, like Sisyphus of Greek Mythology, it’s the struggle itself that fills his heart. Special Ed inspires and provokes us to think about the spark that keeps us going through the good times and the bad.
A personal film about Canada's extraction industry and its detrimental effects on the land and Indigenous peoples.
"In ‘(ab)NORMAL’ the relationship spectrum, from paranoid avoidance to smothering and overwhelming attention, is traced through four pixilated sketches." - Toronto International Film Festival
When our intrepid heroine Darcy gets her heart broken on her 30th birthday, her friends rally around to help her recover.
“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.
“Boy” is a short film that touches on sexual orientation, homophobia and acceptance. An animated figure swings at the viewer while a robotic voice whispers so that no one around him can hear. Slowly descending into self-doubt, he questions his choices and what he has become.
With equal rights in Canada, including same-sex marriage, this video asks, do we still need a queer neighbourhood or queer spaces?
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.
Using 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.
A street flyer leads to a surprising discovery.
Abandoned by her lover, a young woman finds comfort and safety in her basement apartment. Mundane routines, a diet of junk food and the warmth of the television insulate her from the pain and betrayal of her ill-fated relationship.
In “Workin' on Grandma,” the 5th installment of the CHRISTEENE Video Collection, burnt memories and “deviled pussy holes” string themselves along the faded lines of CHRISTEENE's family tree, all tucked in tight under a blanket of Korean karaoke dreams.
Grand Chief Sheila North investigates unsolved murder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
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.
High Altitude explores what it means to be an Indigenous artist in the modern world.
This work deals with the idea of sacred and profane and the Catholicism as an instrument of colonization.
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.
Riverside Queerness reveals hard moments in the Prairies' shadowed queer history. Three storytellers navigate muddy waters that is Manitoba's subconsciousness; where truth is blurred by the power of the currents.
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.
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.
The artist ponders the possibilities of reconciliation.
A place called home, a North End poem.
Exploring the legacy of the Indian Residential School system by looking at its history, present conditions and hopes for the future.
An experimental documentary that explores the complicated process of decolonization and reveals how our memory and history are ingrained in our sense of identification.
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.