Radheya Jang: Playing his cards right

“What would you tell your younger self? I have plenty to say. Do you want to see the future?” 

So begins Radheya Jang’s dark-fantasy animated film, Trading Cards, a personal archaeology played out in an animated universe that combines fairytale logic with the nostalgia of trading cards – the days of a lost childhood embedded in each one.  

Hauntingly narrated by Jang’s father, its outward gentleness and watercolour tones belie a darker, dense apprehension of what is to come, as childhood trading cards are replaced by the cards of the Tarot – The Chariot, The Magician, The Fool – their suite of darker, adult compulsions overlaying the open field of innocence.  

We see the Nine of Swords for anxiety, the Eight of Swords for fear, the Moon for dreams and intuition. And we feel the dread embedded in the divination of what might happen. Palms, crystal balls, fortune cookies, tea leaves, Tarot – all of them dealing in our unknown futures. And overlaying that are the cards of obsession, compulsion, disorder, self-loathing. Hard cards to hold, to turn, or to trade.  

Over its 15 minutes the film sinks in and spreads out through the groundwater, the soundtrack’s rich, seeping ambience an underlay for the unsettling dream logic of its imagery, which is more organic and intrepid than surrealism – and more captivating.  

Jang was born in Perth and now lives in London, signed as a director to BlinkInk following a mentorship with [Blinkink Founder and EP] Bart Yates at the BFI Future Film Festival. Growing up, he more or less taught himself the rudiments of CGI, as well as writing stories he never finished, drawing loads of figures and playing with freeware like Pivot Animator to create his first animations with his brother. Animation is, he says, his natural home. “I found it liberating to push my stories into more fantastical settings, when you have full control of the worlds that you’re showing on screen. However, I’m looking forward to moving into the live-action space and incorporating animation, which I think would be a nice balance.”   

I found it liberating to push my stories into more fantastical settings

His breakthrough was his film The Quiet winning the Best Animation award and Best International Film at the BFI Future Film Festival 2021. “The Quiet was partly based on a short story I’d written in high school about an astronaut’s inner monologue,” he says. “In 2018, I was travelling, and pairings of imagery suddenly came to me – stars and the sound of a salt shaker, and the sun and the sound of a gas stove. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but I wrote it down, and a year later I started developing the film from these foundations.” It is, he says, about isolation and introspection. “I worked on the film mostly on my own, on my laptop, when I was on exchange, so in some ways it was reflecting an isolated process.” 

But it’s Trading Cards that looks set to be his calling card to a creatively rich future of film and features. “It’s a dark-fantasy animated short about an enigmatic man who travels back in time to seek out his childhood self, seemingly to revisit the nostalgia of trading cards. It’s an exploration of identity, mental health, the erosion of childhood innocence, and is based on my personal experience with a side of obsessive-compulsive disorder,” says Jang. And for its sound design, he turned to Factory, after Anthony Moore saw an early cut. Moore suggested senior sound designer James Utting, and away they went.  

“Anthony, James and Ciara Wakley [EP, Factory], the audio producer, invited me to visit their sound studio and sit in on the sessions, going through the film, listening to the mixes and giving feedback. I’ve never had that experience. They helped to bring so much texture and life to the characters and the world of the film. And its incredible sound design has contributed massively to the film’s journey on the festival circuit so far.”  

Sound, he says, is easily 50 per cent of a film. “Especially in my work in animation, where you aren’t shooting on set with sound recordists. The sound designer has to craft and piece together every element of it. When I was starting out I tried doing a lot of the sound design myself,” he adds, “But working with an experienced sound designer elevated my work so much, approaching abstract visual elements in ways I’d never even considered.”  

working with an experienced sound designer elevated my work so much

Which makes Moore’s choice of Jang as his chosen Innovator for shots a natural fit. “I’m deeply flattered and honoured to have been chosen as an Innovator by Anthony,” he says. “He is a wonderful, brilliant man, and every bit deserving of Icon status. It meant a great deal to me, and inspires me to create compelling work that I hope will speak to people.”