Pentagram are proud to present Henry Ponder Goes to Cannes, our second short film about one of the UK’s least-known but more thoughtful poets. Here Pentagram partner Naresh Ramchandani explains what happened after the release of the first film and why the second film was made.
“Last year, I started following Henry Ponder’s poems on Twitter and they quickly became an important part of my life. His short daily poems about the beauty and absurdity of the everyday helped me to stop and be a little more mindful; his words helped me to detach from the frenzy of my hectic life and tune into the wonder of the world around me.
I felt the meditative quality of Henry’s poems deserved a bigger audience, and so we made the first film, Mind Your Head: The Poems of Henry Ponder. We put it online, but we had no idea of the reaction we would get.
The film was made a staff pick on Vimeo, and suddenly thousands and thousands of people had watched it and commentators across the web were acclaiming the delicacy of Henry’s words and the resonance of his ideas. As a result, I was invited to contribute an article about Henry’s mindful art to Creative Review, which was a honour to write.
To spread the Henry word even further, we entered Mind Your Head into the highly prestigious Cannes film festival, and – sacre bleu – it was awarded a short film commendation and, before we knew it, Henry had been sent an invitation to the film’s screening.”
