On 12 September 1919, a troop of some three hundred soldiers under the leadership of the flamboyant war loving Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio swooped into the Northern-Adriatic port town of Fiume, now Rijeka, wanting to annex the city to Italy. Over the course of the next 16 months, during what is regarded as one of the most bizarre militant sieges of all time his official photography team captured over 10,000 images.
A century later, Rijeka-born filmmaker Igor Bezinović, along with some three hundred citizens, orchestrates a direct-action history lesson focused on the siege and its modern-day implications. The communal undertaking in historical empowerment not only revisits both facts and legends but also puts forward a social counterweight to D’Annunzio’s occupational agenda.
The result is a brutally factual yet defiantly punk cinematic journey, deadly serious yet hilariously surreal. It critically examines the tactics of performance, manipulation and propaganda employed during the siege and transgresses them to create a wild ride directly into the heart of chaos. An invitation to dare create new viewpoints, narratives, and experiences, it uncovers nationalist historiographies as effective and obstinate ideological instruments, no matter how absurd or ridiculous.
Fiume o morte! is a film on poetry, dynamite, cocaine, machine guns, football, airplanes, furniture flying out of windows, concerts, prisons, sunbathing, thousands of soldiers, millions of bullets, endless speeches, a platypus and on the power of political performativity. D’Annunzio might as well be considered its trailblazer heralding some of the biggest masters of ghastly political showmanship of our age.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025 – Tiger Competition
2025 Ljubljana Documentary Film Festival – FDF
2025 CPH:DOX (Scandinavian Premiere)
2025 New Directors/New Films (North American Premiere)
2025 One World Romania (Romanian Premiere)
2025 Crossing Europe (Austrian Premiere)
2025 DOK.fest München (German Premiere)
2025 Beldocs (Serbian Premiere)
2025 IFFI Innsbruck
2025 Docudays UA (Ukrainian Premiere)
2025 UnderhillFest (Montenegro Premiere)
2025 Shanghai IFF (Asian Premiere)
2025 IFF Art Film Kosice (Slovakia Premiere)
2025 Mediterrane Film Festival (Malta Premiere)
2025 Taipei Film Festival (Taiwan Premiere)
2025 Pula Film Festival
2025 Yerevan International Film Festival Golden Apricot
2025 Guanajuato IFF (Mexican Premiere)
2025 New Zealand IFF
2025 Dokufest
2025 PORUCH Contemporary Culture Festival
2025 Melbourne IFF (Australian Premiere)
2025 Sarajevo Film Festival
2025 MakeDox
2025 Vukovar Film Festival
2025 WAMA Film Festival
2025 Helsinki IFF Love & Anarchy
2025 San Sebastian IFF
2025 Sofia Documental
2025 Vancouver IFF
2025 Filmfest Osnabrück
2025 Mediterranean Film Festival
2025 MIRAGE Oslo
2025 Film Fest Ghent
2025 FNC Montreal
2025 Bogota International Film Festival
2025 Bergen IFF
2025 CinEast
2025 AFI Fest
2025 Sao Paulo IFF
Upcoming: Jihlava IDFF (Oct. 24 – Nov. 2), Scanorama (Nov. 6-23), Brussels Art Film Festival (Nov. 12-16), Porto/Post/Doc (Nov. 20-29)
AWARDS
- Tiger Award Winner at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025
- FIPRESCI Prize at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025
“We were impressed by the film’s playful use of archival footage and reenactment to throw light on a too-little-known episode of European history. Whilst full of dry, self-reflexive humour, the film manages to use its creative exploration of history to provide in-depth commentary on worrying contemporary political developments, specifically the rise of the global far-right. We applaud the film’s effortless combination of experimentation and accessibility – not least due to its excellent editing – which serves to convey a timely warning against the formation of authoritarianism.”
Jury Statement, FIPRESCI Prize at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025
- Best Documentary at IFFI — International Film Festival Innsbruck 2025
- Maslačak Award – Best Film in the Regional Competition at UnderhillFest 2025
- Vedran Šamanović Award for an innovative approach in Croatian film 2025
- Golden Arena for Best Director – Igor Bezinović at Pula Film Festival 2025
“Using different stylistic registers – from surrealism and irony to humor and Luddism, skilfully intertwining fiction and documentary, in a direction that controls the abundance of material from the first to the last moment and precisely shapes the rhythm and tone of the film, Igor Bezinović has created a playful film that simultaneously entertains, questions and escapes expectations.”
- Golden Arena for Best Production – Vanja Jambrović & Tibor Keser at Pula Film Festival 2025
“The production of the film Fiume o morte! supported the demanding directorial concept with great dedication and carried out the enormous undertaking of merging past and present, crowd scenes, non-professional actors, and costumed action, thereby enabling a unique cinematic achievement.”
- Golden Arena for Best Casting – Sara Jakupec at Pula Film Festival 2025
- Golden Arena for Best Make-up – Ivana Pralija at Pula Film Festival 2025
- Golden Arena for Best Production Design – Anton Spazzapan at Pula Film Festival 2025
- Golden Arena for Best Costume Design – Tajči Čekada & Manuela Paladin at Pula Film Festival 2025
- Golden Apricot in International Competition at Yerevan International Film Festival Golden Apricot 2025
- Young Onion Award for Best Film by First or Second Time Director at MakeDox 2025
- Best Documentary Film at Vukovar Film Festival 2025
- Best Documentary Film at International Documentary Film Festival Dokudoc 2025
- Best Documentary at Ortigia Film Festival 2025
- Audience Award at Dokuart 2025
- Special Mention for the Best Feature Documentary at Mediteran Film Festival 2025
- Special Mention for the Best Cinematography at Mediteran Film Festival 2025
- Audience Award at Days of Croatian Cinema 2025
- Jury Award for the Best Director at Days of Croatian Cinema 2025
- Jury Award for the Best Composer at Days of Croatian Cinema 2025
- Shortlisted for European Film Awards 2026
- Jury Award for the Best Film at Adriatic Film Awards 2025
- Jury Award for the Best Director at Adriatic Film Awards 2025
- Jury Award for the Best Script at Adriatic Film Awards 2025
- Audience Award for the Best Film at CinEast Film Festival 2025
- Vesna Award for the Best Slovenian minority production at Festival Slovenskega Filma Portorož 2025
- Vesna Award for the Best Cinematography at Festival Slovenskega Filma Portorož 2025
PRESS
Reviews: Gazettely, The Arts Fuse, The New Yorker, The New Yorker – Richard Brody’s New Directors/New Films Picks, FIPRESCI, Sight & Sound, The Film Stage, Variety, Screen Daily, High on Films, Business Doc Europe, D-Movies, Il Manifesto, Cineuropa, The Film Verdict, International Cinephile Society, Overly Honest Reviews, StyleFeelFree, Variety – Acquisition Announcement
Interviews: RNZ, Jilu Commune, Filmmaker Magazine, Hollywood Reporter, Documentary Magazine
***
“a witty, resourceful hybrid” … “highly creative” … “both playfully and critically engaged with how the past is reframed”
Guy Lodge, Variety
“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”
Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“fresh and unexpected”
Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
“forthright, unflinching and very funny”
“a timely reminder that laughing at fascists is a form of resistance”
“a gloriously punk spin on the historical documentary genre, channeling the humour and rebellious spirit of a people who have been part of “eight or nine different countries” during the 20th century, who have spoken multiple languages, but who have managed to maintain their own distinct identity nonetheless”
“Unique in structure and enthralling in how it blends so many different ideas together, the film captures the spirit of both the past and the present, focusing on the ways in which they influence one another in the ongoing quest to understand the history of a place and its people, which constantly evolve and provide us with unforgettable insights into a mesmerizing and oddly entertaining historical moment.”
Matthew Joseph Jenner, International Cinephile Society
“a rigorously researched, irreverently punk re-enactment”
Carmen Gray, The Film Verdict
“[a] madcap and irreverent yet astute and politically trenchant intervention”
“Fiume o morte! is a slick piece of filmmaking that reminds us that, although the items of “legacy” of a certain period might not always be on display, the dark or crazy past is never too far away.”
Marko Stojiljković, Cineuropa
“Fiume o morte! is a fascinating, entertaining and provocative journey into certainly one of the strangest aspects of the city’s history, offering various viewpoints and narratives that help balance the darker side of the story alongside the often ridiculous. Sunbathing soldiers, bombastic speeches and even a platypus feature in this oddball story of how a vain political showman had such a drastic impact on a city struggling to find itself post-World War I.”
Mark Adams, Business Doc Europe
“Fiume O Morte! is boisterous, unabashedly humorous, and scathing, the certitude in its stance unmistakable.”
Debanjan Dhar, High on Films
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Igor Bezinović
Igor Bezinović is a filmmaker born in Rijeka, which is now part of Croatia, but at that time belonged to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, before that partly the Kingdom of Italy and partly the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (and before that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), before that the Free State of Fiume, before that the Italian Regency of Carnaro, before that Austria-Hungary…
His films include The Blockade (Oktavijan prize for best Croatian documentary in 2012), Veruda (Oktavijan prize for best Croatian documentary in 2015) and A Brief Excursion (Big Golden Arena prize for best Croatian feature in 2017), along with many shorts of all shapes and sizes. His work has been shown internationally at events including IFF Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig, IDFF Jihlava, CPH:DOX, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, Venice Biennale of Architecture (with Hrvoslava Brkušić for Pulska grupa), Museum of the Moving Image and the Guanajuato IFF.
He graduated in film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and in Philosophy, Sociology and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He is a member of The Croatian Film Directors’ Guild and the judo club Black Belt.
Filmography (selection)
FEATURES
Fiume o morte! (2025)
A Brief Excursion (2017)
The Blockade (2012)
SELECTED SHORTS
Microcassette: The Smallest Cassette I’ve Ever Seen (2020)
Postcards (2018)
The Lovetts (2018)
A Short Family Film (2016)
Veruda – A Film About Bojan (2015)
From Kršan to Peroj (2015)
A Very Brief Excursion (2014)
Waiting (2014)
Unmediated Democracy Demands Unmediated Space (2012)
Self-Governed Film (2012)
Naked Hours (2011)
In Fond Memory of TDZ (2010)
An Encounter (2009)
Non-Recyclable (2009)
Above-Average (2009)
CREDITS
Scriptwriter and director Igor Bezinović
Director of photography Gregor Božič
Editor Hrvoslava Brkušić
Composers Giovanni Maier, Hrvoje Nikšić
Sound recording Ana Jurčić, Andrea Blasetig
Sound design Eric Guerrino Nardin
Producers Vanja Jambrović, Tibor Keser
Production company Restart
Co-producers Erica Barbiani, Marina Gumzi
Co-production Videomante, NOSOROGI
Casting director and manager Sara Jakupec
Associate producer Oliver Sertić
APPEARING
As Gabriele D’Annunzio:
Izet Medošević
Ćenan Beljulji
Albano Vučetić
Tihomir Buterin
Andrea Marsanich
Massimo Ronzani
Milovan Večerina Cico
Narrated by:
Igor Bezinović
Renzo Chiepolo
Silvana Zorich
Noemi Dessardo
Sandro Ferletta
Lovro Mirth
Andrea Marsanich
Sara Marsanich
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Hrvatski audiovizualni centar
Eurimages
Ministero della cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema e audiovisivo
Fondo per l’Audiovisivo del Friuli Venezia Giulia
Slovenski filmski center
Filmski studio Viba Film Ljubljana
Media Programme of the European Commission
Hrvatska radiotelevizija
RTV Slovenija
RE-ACT Co-Development Funding Scheme
Grad Rijeka
Grad Zagreb
Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission
ANGOA – PROCIREP
Društvo hrvatskih filmskih redatelja
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Vanja Jambrović
Vanja Jambrović graduated in comparative literature and philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, and in production at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. As a producer and co-producer, she stands behind many documentaries and hybrid films. The films produced by Vanja have won over 150 awards at international film festivals, two times have been selected for European Film Awards (“Sbenka” 2019 and “Valerija” 2024). Nebojša Slijepčević’s “Srbenka” won a total of 23 awards at film festivals, including the Doc Allianze Award given by the Association of European Documentary Festivals. Her films won Heart of Sarajevo for best documentary three times (“Srbenka” 2018, “Museum of the Revolution” 2022 and “Valerija” 2024). Vanja’s projects are funded by many international institutions and funds, including the Sundance Institute (“Museum of the Revolution” by Srdjan Keca). She has participated in international workshops for film producers REACT (2017), EAVE (2015), Producer on the Move in Cannes (2014), Emerging Producer in Jihlava (2012) and Eurodoc (2010). She has been teaching two courses at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and since 2022 Vanja is working as mentor at the international workshop for development of documentary projects “Documentary Campus Masterschool” from Germany. She has been involved as a guest lecturer at international documentary workshops Ex Oriente, BDC Discoveries and Circle Women Doc Accelerator.
Tibor Keser
Tibor Keser graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb and then studied Production at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb, with which he has been collaborating since 2019 as a title assistant at the Department of Production. So far, he has participated in the production of more than 40 award-winning films of all lengths, shapes and genres – feature films, documentaries, experimental, hybrid, TV series, commercial and music videos. He has been collaborating with Restart since 2014 as a producer, co-producer or executive producer, dealing mostly with documentaries. So far, he has participated in numerous professional educations such as: 7. Sarajevo Talent Campus in 2013, EURODOC in 2015, Berlinale Talents in 2016, IFF Ji.Hlava Emerging Producers in 2017 and EAVE in 2019 as a scholarship holder and winner of the MDM award – Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung at the Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Restart is an organization focused on production, education, distribution and exhibition of creative documentary films. Restart was founded in 2007. Our films were screened at more than 350 international film festivals such as: Locarno Festival, IDFA, Hot Docs, Karlovy Vary IFF, International Film Festival Rotterdam, FID Marseille, Zurich Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, Mar del Plata, Jihlava IDFF and others …
Restart runs several film projects – documentary and fiction film production, distribution of documentary films, a documentary cinema and an educational program in documentary film.
Restart
Croatia
vanja@restarted.hr
+385(0) 91 89 30 675
http://restarted.hr
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
VIDEOMANTE
Erica Barbiani
info@videomante.it
Cividale del Friuli (UD) Italy
https://www.videomante.it
NOSOROGI
Marina Gumzi
marina@nosorogi.com
1 Trg prekomorskih brigad, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
https://www.nosorogi.com
