Fiume o morte!

In this form-defying, vividly entertaining Rotterdam Tiger Award winner, citizens relive the strange post-WWI dictatorship that befell their city.

Following the conclusion of World War I, Gabriele D’Annunzio – a celebrated officer of the Royal Italian Army, as well as a renowned poet and playwright – decided to seize and annex the seaport city of Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia). For some, D’Annunzio was a pro-Italian romantic; for others, an authoritarian seduced by the nationalism that swept postwar Italy. What isn’t in question is that he contributed substantially to the birth of fascism as we know it today, with his 16-month occupation and dictatorial rule of Fiume from 1919 to 1920 admired by Benito Mussolini and used as a template of darker things to come.

Drawing on testimonials by Rijeka residents, archival footage and photography, as well as satirical readings of D’Annunzio’s own political manifesto, Croatian director Igor Bezinović crafts a visionary, self-deprecatingly funny hybrid documentary exploring this brief moment of a century past and its long legacy. In an ingenious gambit that collides the past and the modern day, he also stages re-enactments involving 300 locals – many recruited from the street in vox-pop fashion – on the sites of historical events, creating an absurdist representation of the pathologies of unchecked ego and nationalist fervour. Winning two awards at the 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam including its top prize, Fiume o morte! is as unpredictable as its quixotic subject, and serves as a potent reminder of how the past lives on in the present.

“A novel approach to historical drama, realized with daring, skill, and sardonic wit … powerfully conveys the eerie sense of experiencing history in the present tense.” – The New Yorker