Martyr's Guidebook
2024 · 9m · Poland
Directed by Maks Rzontkowski
Genres: animation, comedy, drama
Tones: absurdist, surreal, tense, whimsical
A young boy named Tony performs a small act of kindness—taking the smallest slice of birthday cake—and inadvertently befriends an otherworldly angel who moves in with him. The film chronicles Tony's life as the ultimate good guy, sometimes to a fault, as this unlikely friendship unfolds in playful and surreal ways.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Blender-animated glitchy chaos about a people-pleaser whose angel roommate witnesses his goodness as pathology — that's a genuinely strange Polish swing. The aesthetic-as-personality alignment is exactly right.
Blender-animated frenetic kindness-as-pathology comedy in a glitchy register echoes Masaaki Yuasa's Mind Game — the angel-as-roommate device gives the absurdism its emotional anchor. Polish indie animation continues its very good run.
Blender animation with intentionally glitchy, off-kilter cameras and rapid editing as a formal mirror for a people-pleaser's interior chaos — that's the aesthetic doing thematic work. Nine minutes, only 4.2K views, but the craft brief is precise.
Reviews
Thriving on abstract audaciousness, Martyr's Guidebook dares us to face and rethink our self-perception with the right amount of wit.
Rzontkowski's short occupies an interesting space between experimental animation and narrative, combining an unusual aesthetic with a fragmented yet consistently engaging storyline — refreshingly singular.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2024
- Fest Anča International Animation Festival 2024
- Film Fest Gent 2024
- Galician Freaky Film Festival 2025, Grand Prize
- Ottawa International Animation Festival 2024
- Salute Your Shorts Film Festival 2024