World Naked Bike Tour was one of the Official Selections from the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology’s 2024 festival that accepted the Filmmaker Mixer Podcast’s offer to review their work. It is a 2D animated short film based on a real-world international event called “World Naked Bike Ride,” which it opens with live action footage of. The point of the event was initially to protest fossil fuel consumption, which we see represented in the film through a few small details, but evolved into celebrating body positivity and showed that nudity isn’t inherently lewd. It features a lot of very unsexualized (yet completely uncensored) nudity, representing the human body as simply a naturalistic thing. Protesting the event in this short film is a man who uses the word “shame” to speak against it. It’s a very interesting commentary on how we insist on viewing nudity as shameful, especially by contrasting the presence of it with these cartoony designs. The art direction is charming and colorful, and was in fact inspired by the work of the talented illustrator George Mager, who is credited as a concept artist on the film.
Madelyn, Filmmaker Mixer Correspondent
