We wanted to take these amazing poems written over 100 years ago and make them speak to a contemporary audience.

Rhyfel is a poem about war and the costs for those who are sent to fight it – it has an added poignancy as Hedd Wyn was killed shortly after writing it.

We decided that the entire poem would be delivered by people who were younger than Hedd Wyn when he was killed, except for the last line, which would be delivered by the old man he was robbed of the chance to become. 

Visually we tried to create something that existed outside of any particular historical period, choosing locations and costumes that could equally be from the 1910s or the 2010s.

We set much of the film in rural settings with there remnants of ruined buildings to evoke the sense of devastation that runs throughout the poem and used the sound of distant artillery fire in the sound design to create a sense of the threat over the horizon.

The video was a key focus at the exhibition and has performed well online in the years since.

It is the most viewed video on the National Library of Wales’ YouTube Channel and is still widely re-shared across social media each year around Remembrance Sunday.