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There are some screenings that feel less like events and more like gatherings. Moments where a community comes together, not just to watch films, but to remember, to reflect, and to feel something collectively. This upcoming program at Harpur Cinema is one of those.
On April 24 & 26, Harpur Cinema (Binghamton University) will present a collection of films by Tomonari Nishikawa, an artist, educator, and my friend whose presence shaped the experimental film community here in Binghamton and far beyond.
Tomonari passed away in 2025 at the age of 55 after a short battle with cancer. This screening, in many ways, is a chance to spend time with his work again, to sit with the images and ideas he left behind, and to remember the person who made them.
Tomonari was, by every measure, a remarkable filmmaker. Born in Nagoya, Japan, he came to the United States to study cinema and philosophy, eventually making his way to Binghamton University, where he would later teach and mentor generations of students. His films have screened internationally at festivals like Berlinale, Toronto, and the New York Film Festival. Despite that global reach, his work always felt grounded in something intimate, observational, and deeply human.
He worked primarily in 16mm and Super 8, embracing the physicality of film itself: scratching it, layering it, exposing it in fragments, and treating cinema not just as a storytelling medium, but as a material to be explored. His films often focus on small moments: the rhythm of a city street, the shifting light over a landscape, the quiet repetition of everyday life. But within those moments, something larger emerges: an attention to time, place, and perception that feels meditative.
That’s the formal description.
But it doesn’t quite capture who he was.
I had the privilege of working alongside Tomonari for twelve years through the Transient Visions: Festival of the Moving Image, a festival he co-founded and nurtured into something truly special. He had a way of making space for artists, for ideas, for experimentation. He was generous with his time, thoughtful in his feedback, and endlessly curious. He believed in the work, but more importantly, he believed in people.
That generosity extended into his teaching as well. He was widely admired not only for his films, but for the way he supported and mentored young filmmakers, helping them find their voice within an often challenging and abstract art form.
This screening is, in many ways, a reflection of that spirit.
The program brings together a selection of his films spanning two decades, works that showcase the rigor and playfulness of his approach. You’ll see images that flicker, collide, and transform; structures that feel precise and mathematical, yet somehow spontaneous. His films don’t always explain themselves, and that’s part of their beauty. They invite you to sit with them, to experience them, to notice things you might otherwise overlook.
And maybe that’s the best reason for you to attend this celebration of experimental film.
Not just to understand the work, but to experience it in a room with others. To let it unfold in real time, on film, the way he intended. There’s something fitting about that. In a world where so much is flattened into streams and screens, Tomonari’s work reminds us that cinema can still be tactile, communal, and alive.
For those of us who knew him, it’s also a chance to remember.
And for those who didn’t, it’s an opportunity to encounter a filmmaker whose work continues to resonate: quietly, insistently, beautifully.
Harpur Cinema is located on the Binghamton University campus, in Lecture Hall 6. Friday April 24th, and Sunday April 26th. 5:00-7:30pm. Admission is $4, or free for students with ID. Each screening will feature a different selection of Tomonari’s work, so if you can attend both, you should!
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