Tone Glow Film Festival, 2026

A pass that ensures entry into every ticketed event at TGFF. Please scroll down to find the actual link to purchase.

This pass allows you to enter both screenings on Thursday, May 21st: "Shadow Stepping: The Films of Isao Kota" "Opening Night: Rhayne Vermette's Levers"

This pass allows you to enter both screenings on Friday, May 22nd: "Shades of Silk: Mary Stephen's Early Films" "Zhou Tao's The Rib of the Greater Bay Area"

This pass allows you to enter all five screenings on Saturday, May 23rd: "Hallucinatory Detour: The Films of Ahmet Kut" "Cinematic Jouissance: Dominique Willoughby, Philip Dubuquoy, and Claudine Eizykman" Arthur & Corinne Cantrill Programs, Parts 1-3

This pass allows you to enter all three ticketed screenings on Sunday, May 24th: "David Gatten's Films For Invisible Ink" "Closing Night: Kevin Walker & Jack Auen's Chronovisor" "After Party: The Light Show". Please note that there are two free events on Sunday afternoon at the Block Museum.

SHADOW STEPPING is a showcase of eight works by the overlooked Japanese avant-garde filmmaker Isao Kota (b. 1953). Kota first became aware of experimental films while attending art school in Tokyo. After getting his hands on some equipment, he soon began making his own works in 1972, crafting 35 meticulous short-form experiments on 8mm and 16mm in the ensuing decades. This event presents eight highlights from throughout his career, including his very first and last works. His films, defined by their precision and editing trickery, led to him donning the nickname the “Alchemist of Images.”

LEVERS is the second feature film from Métis filmmaker Rhayne Vermette. The film begins in Red River Valley, Manitoba, as a crowd of people watch as a new sculpture is unveiled. Shortly after, the entire world faces a strange phenomenon in which the sun doesn’t rise. Weaving together mystic symbolism, religious imagery, and Indigenous cultural signifiers, LEVERS is an atmospheric drifter of a film, bound together by slippery narrative strands that exemplifies Vermette’s disinterest in typical storytelling methods. Vermette will be present for a post-screening Q&A.

Mary Stephen (b. 1953) is a Hong Kong-born, Paris-based filmmaker best known for working as Éric Rohmer’s editor during the latter part of his career. Stephen studied at Concordia University in Montreal, making her first films in the early 1970s. These works were partly inspired by experimental filmmakers like Maya Deren and Charles Gagnon. She would crystallize her ideas with SHADES OF SILK (1978), a hidden gem of diasporic Asian cinema. In her words, it is about people who are “stuck in their destiny.” Stephen will be present for a virtual Q&A.

Zhou Tao is one of the great documentarians of China’s contemporary film landscape. His works are deceptively simple, utilizing the basic elements of filmmaking to shed light on different regions in China. THE RIB OF THE GREATER BAY AREA is his latest stunner, shooting around the Greater Bay Area—from the Pearl River to Victoria Harbour—with a telephoto lens. His manipulations render different scenes into pure color, reminiscent of recent works by Ernie Gehr. In his embrace of digital flatness, he ekes out tremendous images that are ghostly, gauzy, and beautiful in their everyday nature.

Ahmet Kut is one of the co-founders of the Paris Films Coop. The three works in this program represent the bulk of Kut’s filmic output, and are playing on rare 16mm prints. BLANC (1975) is a structuralist meditation built on a film roll left behind by his late best friend. POUR FAIRE UN BON VOYAGE, PRENONS LE TRAIN (1973) is a whirlwinding collection of superimpositions soundtracked by Jean-Louis Aubert of Téléphone fame. REGARD DE MA FENÊTRE (1974) is a sort of French, hippie EMPIRE (1965).

CINEMATIC JOUISSANCE takes its title from Claudine Eizykman’s theories of filmmaking, which were rooted in philosopher Jean-François Lyotard’s ideas. A co-founder of the Paris Films Coop, Eizykman believed that experimental film’s kinetic potential could lead to a new mode of perception, one that could elicit extreme reactions such as nausea and pleasure. Her film, BRUINE SQUAMMA 3ÈME PARTIE : SÉRIES SATURÉES (1972-1977), will screen alongside two imageless works: Philip Dubuquoy’s COLOR ENTROPIE (1979-1980) and Dominique Willoughby’s MASSES TURBULENTES.

For half a century, the husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Arthur (b. 1938) and Corinne Cantrill (1928-2025) crafted bold 16mm films that informed generations of avant-garde filmmaking in Australia. LIGHT CONTEMPLATIONS features a chronological selection of films beginning with BOUDDI (1970), a kinetic portrait of the titular coastal bush in New South Wales. The subsequent three works depict the Cantrills’ signature three-color separation technique: the subtle HEAT SHIMMER (1978), the lush coastal tapestry of the Hawkesbury River in WARRAH (1980), and the outrageously hyperreal WATERFALL (1984).

For half a century, the husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Arthur (b. 1938) and Corinne Cantrill (1928-2025) crafted bold 16mm films that informed generations of avant-garde filmmaking in Australia. PERMANENT VACATIONS pairs two meditative works from the Cantrills. NOTES ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME (1979), a three-color separation film of Pearl Beach, its inhabitants moving like apparitions. OCEAN AT POINT LOOKOUT (1977) contemplates the ocean at Stradbroke Island, creating a “visual poem with a musical structure based on silence.”

For half a century, the husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Arthur (b. 1938) and Corinne Cantrill (1928-2025) crafted bold 16mm films that informed generations of avant-garde filmmaking in Australia. ETERNAL ACCUMULATIONS pairs two wildly different landscape films from the Cantrills. EARTH MESSAGE is a dynamic, freewheeling depiction of the Australian bush, complete with Aboriginal music. AT ULURU examines the sacred sandstone monolith known as Ayers Rock, allowing viewers to gradually feel its power, beauty, and mystery.

David Gatten is an American filmmaker whose works are deeply concerned with materiality, the written word, and the ways in which printed communication can be polysemic and prismatic when presented in a filmic context. This program highlights works from his FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK series, where minimalist aesthetics collapse image and text. The final film in the series was made for his wedding to the artist Erin Espelie. These works are preceded by SHRIMP BOAT LOG (2010), a work featuring shrimp boats on the Edisto River, the images guided by Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks.

CHRONOVISOR (2026) is the most brilliant American feature film debut of the decade. Inspired by the titular invention—a device that Italian Benedictine monk Pellegrino Ernetti used to allegedly view the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ—CHRONOVISOR follows the French academic Beatrice Courte (Anne Laure Sellier) as she navigates a labyrinthine sprawl of information found in books, video footage, and more. CHRONOVISOR captures phenomena that are rarely conveyed in film successfully: the all-consuming rabbit holes that research draws us into, and the subtle allure of conspiratorial thinking.

Tone Glow Film Festival concludes with an after party. This screening features two works by Anthony McCall. LINE DESCRIBING A CONE (1973) is what the British artist calls a “solid light film,” as the primary experience of the work is with the projected light beam. “The film exists only in the present: the moment of projection. It refers to nothing beyond this real time,” he’s said. This event is being held at a secret location; all ticket holders will be emailed the address on the day of the event. Alternatively, you can DM Joshua Minsoo Kim on Instagram (@misterminsoo) for further info.