FILM : THE CURIOSITY OF EDWARD PRATT
I spent 1,200 days unicycling around the world… and I don’t know why
Film by
ED PRATT AND THOMAS SANDLER
FIND THOMAS HERE
My name’s Ed Pratt and from March 2015 to July 2018 I pedalled a unicycle 22,000miles around the world. Over that time I crossed 4 continents and performed over 12 million pedal rotations on my 40kg, 36’’ touring unicycle.
‘The Curiosity of Edward Pratt’ is a character study. It poses the question: “What drives Edward Pratt?”. Like many adventurers, Ed has a yearning to circumnavigate the globe but – unlike anyone else – he did it on a unicycle. This short documentary attempts to frame why.
Back in 2019 I spent a few days with Thomas Sandler shooting a short film about my 22,000 mile world unicycle tour. Originally meeting in the ‘Funky Monkey’ hostel in Vientiane, Laos, he contacted me two years later, explaining that he’d like to produce a short documentary on my ride for his university project. This documentary would later be dubbed ‘The Curiosity of Edward Pratt’.
A newborn babe might look at a toy with curiosity, much as a camel may watch a man unicycle across the steppes of Kazakhstan with a similar sentiment…
Since the film’s completion in 2020 it was clear that ‘The Curiosity of Edward Pratt’ had much more potential than to be viewed once by a couple of dusty examiners in an equally dusty back room at York University, so Tommy took the doc and entered it into many film festivals across the country and around the world – quite fitting really! During its run, it screened at over 35 festivals including the Academy Award qualifying ‘Leuven International Short Film Festival’ and the 40th ‘Kendal Mountain Film Festival’. It was nominated for national level awards and it won two ‘Yorkshire Royal Television Society Student Awards’. Pretty damn good going I’d say!
Over the last couple of years Tommy’s been holding off releasing the film online, because this would’ve affected its eligibility of being entered into certain festivals. But now, with the festival run over, ‘The Curiosity of Edward Pratt’ can finally be released to the world, and Tommy has been kind enough to let me be the one to do so! So sit back, relax and experience my unicycle ride in a way you’ve never seen it before!
Ed’s incredible unicycle around the world raised over £300,000 for School in a Bag, a Somerset based charity who send SchoolBags filled with educational resources to poor, orphan, vulnerable, disadvantaged and disaster affected children.
“We work with incredible partners who work tirelessly to improve the education of children in their communities, often with minuscule budgets. By providing SchoolBags, we can take their financial and supply burden away from their remit allowing them to put their funds towards the other vital parts of the educations structure. More often than not this includes funding more teachers or building new class rooms. This dual relationship is critical to the execution of our work and we are indebted to all of our amazing partners who collectively help us transform the lives of children through education.”
You can donate to this fantastic charity here: https://www.schoolinabag.org/donate/
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CONTRIBUTOR
Ed Pratt
I was first introduced to unicycling by best friend, Daisy, in 2012. She knew I was into juggling, and happened to have an old rusting 16’’ uni in her garage. Thinking I might want to extend my circus repertoire, she gave it to me. It took me 3 weeks to get the hang of it, practicing a little everyday until I could ride consistently down our lane. The sense of accomplishment you get from riding 20 meters down the road, when at first not even being able to sit up on the thing, is immense. In some ways every time I go out for a ride I’m chasing that original ‘HOLY COW I’m actually doing this’ rush!