Giro the Germ

A public health instruction manual masquerading as a fever dream, Giro the Germ anthropomorphizes the invisible threats of the microscopic world. The film follows a troupe of performers in bulbous, unsettling costumes as they interpret the spread of disease through erratic movement and pantomime. It attempts to scare the audience into cleanliness by giving the common cold a face—and some very questionable dance moves. By personifying pathogens as mischievous, hopping entities, the short aims to make the abstract concept of hygiene tangible for a 1920s audience that was still coming to grips with germ theory in popular culture.