“Dark Radiance”, a meditation on optical and sonic phenomena, is an experimental music- film/documentation, shot on analog 8 mm film.The percussionist Ying-Hsueh Chen improvises on a Tam-tam, a bass drum, 3 cymbals, and a metal plate with unconventional technique. By rubbing, turning, scratching with just a few instruments, a rich yet eerie world of overtones comes alive, intertwined with noises and undefined rhythms. With perpetually irregular shifts of perspectives, we enter a realm where polarities are melted together: the abyss with glare, the shadow with glow, the primordial with elegance, the angst with serenity, the brutal with delicacy, the eternal with mortality.

"Dark Radiance" has won Prauge Film Award in 2024 and has been selected to showcase in CPH:DOX & Festival Internacional de Cine y Multimedia (2023). It was nominated for Best Documentary & Best Cinematography, Photography Awards (London, 2025).


Full creditlist:

Director, camera, editing & makeup: Rikke Benborg
Composition & performance: Ying-Hsueh Chen
Producer: Ancestral Modernism / Ying-Hsueh Chen
Recording and mixing: Mette Due
Light Design: Christian Alkær
Clothes: Isaksen Design
​Film shot in Betty Nansens Teatret