Tone Glow Film Festival sets May 21–24

Experimental film is the kind of scene where access is half the art. The work exists, but the prints are scattered, the screenings are rare, and a lot of the real action happens outside the usual festival pipeline. That is why Tone Glow’s new film festival lands as more than just another dates announcement. The Chicago-based publication is launching the first Tone Glow Film Festival from May 21 through May 24, with 45 films across 14 programs at Chicago Filmmakers, the Block Museum, and a still-unannounced third location in Chicagoland. (letterboxd.com) ### What actually got announced? Tone Glow unveiled the full framework for TGFF on April 30. Joshua Minsoo Kim — Tone Glow’s founder, editor-in-chief, and a critic-programmer who has been building film events around the publication — is curating the slate. The festival is not built around open submissions. It is hand-selected, and Tone Glow i(letterboxd.com)ontext, and a strong curatorial voice. (letterboxd.com) ### Why does the 16mm count matter? Because in this corner of cinema, format is not a side detail. Tone Glow says 26 of the 45 films will screen on 16mm, and some of those prints were imported from overseas. Basically, the festival is selling not just titles but encounters — the chance to see works in the medium they were made for, with the texture, flicker, and physical presence that disappear in digital circulation. (letterboxd.com) ### What kind of films are in it? The lineup mixes canonical avant-garde names with newer or less broadly circulated artists. The festival page highlights filmmakers including Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Claudine Eizykman, Isao Kota, Mary Stephen, Rhayne Vermette, David Gatten, and Anthony McCall. That range tells you the programming logic. (letterboxd.com)ng map of experimental film language.” (sotwe.com) ### Why Chicago? Because Tone Glow is already building this there. The publication is based in Chicago, and over the past year it has been presenting one-off screenings and co-presentations with local institutions. A recent example was “Eyes on the Road” at Chicago Filmmakers, a structurally minded road-movie program that included rare 16mm prints and restorations. So TGFF is not a (sotwe.com)p in an existing local exhibition practice. (toneglow.net) ### What role do the venues play? They tell you what kind of festival this wants to be. Chicago Filmmakers is a longtime home for independent and experimental work. The Block Museum’s cinema program also has a track record of rare-format and research-driven screenings. Put those together and you get a boutique festival model — not red carpets, not industry dealmaking, but serious presenta(toneglow.net) or historically neglected films. (chicagofilmmakers.org) ### Is this a normal festival rollout? Not really. The ticketing structure is closer to an art-series launch than a mass-market fest. Tone Glow says there will be 12 ticketed programs and 2 free ones, with individual tickets at $20, standard passes at $190, and early-bird passes at $170. That pricing, plus the limited-run framing, makes the event feel intentionally compact — a concentrated weekend for a self-selecting audience. (letterboxd.com) ### Why skip submissions? Because submissions produce breadth, but curation produces argument. Tone Glow’s pitch is that TGFF is about showing “masterworks both new and old” and inviting viewers to think about cinema’s history and future in the same space. The catch is that this makes the festival narrower by design. But that narrowness is also its identity — a publication with taste turning that taste into a physical program. (letterboxd.com) ### Bottom line? Tone Glow is trying to become more than a publication. With TGFF, it is staking out a role as a small but serious exhibitor of experimental cinema — one built on rare prints, strong programming, and the idea that discovery still works best in a room. (letterboxd.com)