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Tone Glow is excited to announce the Tone Glow Film Festival (TGFF), a festival committed to showcasing the best in experimental film. The screenings will take place on Thursday, May 21st to Sunday, May 24th at three venues in Chicagoland. 45 films will be shown across 14 programs, and 26 of these films will be shown on 16mm prints, some of which were imported from overseas. Eschewing traditional submission-based programming, TGFF hand-selects works that highlight the ingenuity, originality, and radical possibilities of independent and avant-garde filmmaking. Its mission is to provide local audiences with the chance to see masterworks both new and old, inviting contemplation on the cinematic form’s history and future. TGFF is co-presented by @chicagofilmmakers.

Tone Glow Film Festival will include:
• The largest retrospective of works by Arthur & Corinne Cantrill in the United States in 25 years, all on 16mm.
• Films from overlooked French experimentalists Ahmet Kut, Dominique Willoughby, Philip Dubuquoy, and Claudine Eizykman, all on 16mm.
• Three recent feature films that highlight the ingenuity of contemporary independent filmmaking: Rhayne Vermette’s LEVERS (2025), Zhou Tao’s THE RIB OF THE GREATER BAY AREA (2026), and Kevin Walker & Jack Auen’s CHRONOVISOR (2026). Vermette will be in person for a post-screening Q&A.
• A new 2K restoration of SHADES OF SILK, the 1978 feature film by Mary Stephen, a longtime editor for Éric Rohmer. Stephen will be present for a virtual Q&A.
• Two free screenings highlighting works by overlooked American filmmakers Peter Bundy and Allen Ross, the latter of whom co-founded Chicago Filmmakers in 1973.
• Recent digital restorations of works by Isao Kota.
• A program of text-based works by David Gatten, all on 16mm.
• A late-night screening of films by Anthony McCall—smoking is permitted, even encouraged.

Early bird fest passes go live Friday, May 1st at 10am Central Time. All other passes and tickets go live on Tuesday, May 5th at 10am Central Time. More info, tickets, the official announcement, and a trailer all at the link in bio.

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. “No longer is one viewing position as good as any other. For this film every viewing position presents a different aspect. The viewer therefore has a participatory role in apprehending the event: he or she can—indeed needs to move around, relative to the emerging light-form.” A similar work, CONICAL SOLID (1974), will also be shown. Additional short-form works will also be shown throughout the event. Smoking is permitted, even encouraged. 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 information.

Program:
1. Line Describing a Cone (Anthony McCall, 1973, 30 mins) [16mm]
2. Conical Solid (Anthony McCall, 1974, 10 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 40 mins + Additional Surprises

Sunday, May 24th at 11:30pm
Secret Location (location revealed day of event)
Films provided by @canyoncinema

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

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. In the lineage of works by Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges, Kevin Walker and Jack Auen invite viewers to follow Courte in her impassioned quest of discovery through ample amounts of onscreen text, the effect similar to viewing films by Michael Snow and David Gatten. CHRONOVISOR is shot on gorgeous 16mm and soundtracked by Gustav Holst, providing a vivid portrait of New York City’s historic libraries but also specific 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.

CHRONOVISOR will be preceded by Park Kyujae’s MUR DE L’ATELIER (2023-2026), a short-form, black-and-white, hand-processed 16mm film poetically depicting flora and interior spaces.

1. Mur de l’atelier (Park Kyujae, 2023-2026, 10 mins)
2. Chronovisor (Kevin Walker & Jack Auen, 2026, 99 mins)
TRT = 109 mins

Sunday, May 24th at 7:30pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by the directors and @ghopperfilm

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

David Gatten (b. 1971) 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 writer, filmmaker, and video 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 own notebooks.

Program:
1. Shrimp Boat Log (David Gatten, 2010, 6 mins) [16mm]
2. Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 71: Base-Plus-Fog (David Gatten, 2006, 10 mins) [16mm]
3. Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 142: Abbreviation for Dead Winter [Diminished by 1,794] (David Gatten, 2008, 13 mins) [16mm]
4. Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (David Gatten, 2010, 20 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 49 mins

Sunday, May 24th at 6:00pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @canyoncinema

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio (Tickets are currently discounted to $15)

This collaborative program between Tone Glow & Block Cinema gathers three filmmakers whose eccentric paths shared concerns for the cinematic evocation of place and spirit. ALABAMA DEPARTURE (1978), co-directed by Peter Bundy & Bryan Elsom, is a tapestry of small towns in southern Alabama: Coffeeville, Banks & Dauphin Island. Through gentle portraits of these landscapes, the film encourages a mode of viewing and listening that draws connections between humans, the natural world, the music they both create, and the environments that bind them.

In THE GRANDFATHER TRILOGY (1979-1981), the trio of short films that came to define his legacy, late Chicago filmmaker Allen Ross crystallized an austere but unmistakably personal cinema rooted in time, place, and family. As plain as dirt and as rich as soil, PAPA (32 min) is built up from stark black-and-white 16mm compositions that frame the filmmaker’s land-working grandfather at peculiar angles, often casting a glance pensively to the beckoning earth. The mundane family conversations and afternoon naps captured in THANKSGIVING, 1979 linger in the incandescent light of unhurried time—even as a background TV broadcast delivers unsettling reports on the unfolding hostage crisis in Iran. Ross pivots to reflect on the ephemerality of life and the finality of death in the last of the shorts, BURIELS. Cast in an aching blue hue, the film attends to the banal conventions of grief with pure reverence.

At once materialist and spiritual, THE GRANDFATHER TRILOGY reflects the influence of avant-garde filmmaker Robert Fulton, with whom Ross studied while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For PATH OF CESSATION (1974), Fulton traveled to Tibet, gathering impressions in the form of both meditative long takes and swirling superimpositions.

Program:
1. Alabama Departure (Peter Bundy & Bryan Elsom, 1978, 9 mins)
2. Path of Cessation (Robert Fulton, 1974, 15 mins) [16mm]
3. The Grandfather Trilogy (Allen Ross, 1981, 60 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 84 mins

Sunday, May 24th at 2:00pm
@nublockmuseum (40 Arts Cir Dr.)
Films provided by @chicagofilmmakers, @walkerartcenter, and @canyoncinema

🎟️ Free event, RSVP at link in bio

In the busy, fragmented, coastally-dominated landscape of American independent cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, regional voices like Chicago’s Allen Ross and Alabama’s Peter Bundy might have been hard to hear. Whether due to their location, to the economy of their means, or to the boldly personal and formally challenging quality of their films, Bundy’s minimalistic landscape works and Ross’s elusive portraits have never enjoyed national visibility. “Arrivals – Regional Spirits” seeks both to embrace and to correct the perception of these two undersung artists as “minor” figures. While their reflective, often melancholy works linger on the minute details, small gestures, and modest lives that manifest regional identity, they also express the grandest aspirations of experimental cinema: that potentially anything and anyone is worthy of devoted attention.

Perhaps Allen Ross’s most abstract and tender film is TRYST (1981), which conjures the flush of infatuation through an elusive series of skyscapes, close-ups, and city views. TRYST builds on the elemental themes and tinting experiments of THE GRANDFATHER TRILOGY (1979-1981), finding poetry in the interstices of the local, the cosmic, the concrete, and the ineffable. In A WEDDING (1982), Ross’s striking and disorienting cinematography warps the familiar contours of the American wedding ritual, while his elliptical sense of time transforms the documentation of an event into a memory of a lost feeling.

Program:
1. Roan Mountain Eulogy (Peter Bundy, 1979, 4 mins)
2. Four Corners (Peter Bundy, 1983, 15 mins) [16mm]
3. Summer Sketch (Peter Bundy, 19xx, 4 mins) [16mm]
4. Tryst (Allen Ross, 1981, 14 mins) [16mm]
5. A Wedding (Allen Ross, 1982, 25 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 62 mins

Sunday, May 24th at 12:00pm
@nublockmuseum (40 Arts Cir Dr.)
Films provided by @chicagofilmmakers & @walkerartcenter

🎟️ Free event, RSVP at link in bio

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. The Cantrills held workshops and salons to teach younger filmmakers their craft, frequently held film screenings in their home, and edited and published 100 issues of the Cantrills Filmnotes from 1971-2000. TGFF is excited to present the largest retrospective of the Cantrills’ works in the US in 25 years, presenting rare 16mm prints showcasing their visionary ideas.

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.

Program:
1. Earth Message (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1970, 23 mins) [16mm]
2. At Uluru (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1977, 80 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 103 mins

Saturday, May 23rd at 9:00pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @arsenalberlin

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

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. The Cantrills held workshops and salons to teach younger filmmakers their craft, frequently held film screenings in their home, and edited and published 100 issues of the Cantrills Filmnotes from 1971-2000. TGFF is excited to present the largest retrospective of the Cantrills’ works in the US in 25 years, presenting rare 16mm prints showcasing their visionary ideas.

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.”

Program:
1. Notes on the Passage of Time (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1979, 13 mins) [16mm]
2. Ocean at Point Lookout (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1977, 45 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 58 mins

Saturday, May 23rd at 7:30pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @arsenalberlin

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

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. The Cantrills held workshops and salons to teach younger filmmakers their craft, frequently held film screenings in their home, and edited and published 100 issues of the Cantrills Filmnotes from 1971-2000. TGFF is excited to present the largest retrospective of the Cantrills’ works in the US in 25 years, presenting rare 16mm prints showcasing their visionary ideas.

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, starting with the subtle HEAT SHIMMER (1978) shot in Central Australia, to the lush coastal tapestry of the Hawkesbury River in WARRAH (1980), to the outrageously hyperreal MacKenzie Falls in WATERFALL (1984).

Program:
1. Bouddi (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1970, 8 mins) [16mm]
2. Heat Shimmer (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1978, 12 mins) [16mm]
3. Warrah (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1980, 15 mins) [16mm]
4. Waterfall (Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, 1984, 17 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 52 mins

Saturday, May 23rd at 6:00pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @arsenalberlin

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

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), is part of a trilogy in which all parts could be seen together or as standalone works. Preceding this film are two imageless works: Philip Dubuquoy’s COLOR ENTROPIE (1979-1980), a hypnotic painted film reminiscent of Stan Brakhage and José Antonio Sistiaga; and Dominique Willoughby’s MASSES TURBULENTES (1976), a hypnotic film featuring colorful micro-drops sprayed onto transparent film stock.

Program:
1. Color Entropie (Philip Dubuquoy, 1979-1980, 10 mins) [16mm]
2. Masses Turbulentes (Dominique Willoughby, 1976, 17 mins) [16mm]
3. Bruine Squamma 3ème partie : Séries Saturées (Claudine Eizykman, 1972-1977, 33 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 60 mins

Saturday, May 23rd at 2:00pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @cinedocpfc

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

Ahmet Kut is one of the co-founders of the Paris Films Coop. Throughout the 1970s, the filmmakers whose works were part of this loose collective represented an alternative view of experimental and especially structuralist filmmaking. 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), featuring shots of buildings outside Kut’s home. Please note that this latter film is faded and that there is no other copy in existence.

Program:
1. Blanc (Ahmet Kut, 1975, 5 mins) [16mm]
2. Pour faire un bon voyage, prenons le train (Ahmet Kut, 1973, 20 mins) [16mm]
3. Regard de ma fenêtre (Ahmet Kut, 1974, 45 mins) [16mm]
TRT = 70 mins

Saturday, May 23rd at 12:00pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave.)
Films provided by @cinedocpfc

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio

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 throughout 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.

THE RIB OF THE GREATER BAY AREA will be preceded by Francisco Rojas’ UNMEASURABLE PARTICLES, another work of digital wizardry. Shooting on a Fuji digital camera, @dogstarfran transforms the Callecalle River in Valdivia, Chile into flecks and ribbons of hyperreal colors.

Program:
1. Unmeasurable Particles (Francisco Rojas, 2026, 10 mins)
2. The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (Zhou Tao, 2026, 70 mins)
TRT = 80 mins

Friday, May 22nd at 8:30pm
@chicagofilmmakers (1326 W Hollywoood Ave.)
Films provided by the directors

🎟️ Tickets at link in bio