Sales company Lightdox has boarded Igor Bezinović‘s hybrid documentary “Fiume o morte!,” which premieres in the Tiger Competition section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
The Croatian-Italian-Slovenian coproduction takes the audience back to 1919, when the Italian nationalist poet, dandy and preacher of war Gabriele D’Annunzio occupied the city of Fiume.
“Today, the citizens of Fiume, now called Rijeka, retell and reinterpret the bizarre story about the 16-month occupation of their city in a brutally factual yet defiantly punk cinematic journey,” a statement explains.
“‘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.”
The film is Bezinović’s third feature, following “The Blockade” (2012), which received the Oktavijan prize for Best Croatian Documentary in 2012, and “A Brief Excursion” (2017), which premiered in Rotterdam’s Bright Future strand in 2017.
Bezinović comments: “By making this film I wanted to get to know the past of my hometown Rijeka/Fiume, but also to get to understand its present state from a new perspective. I made this film with my fellow citizens and for my fellow citizens, which I hope we’ll be able to retell to new generations.”
He continues: “During this process I’ve met hundreds of my fellow citizens, who all had ideas about what this film should be like. I’ve also met historians of all kinds, from those who saw D’Annunzio as the crazier version of Mussolini to the ones who saw him as the Italian Che Guevara.
“In 1960, Pier Paolo Pasolini called D’Annunzio’s occupation of Fiume a ‘narcissistic escapade’: D’Annunzio saw Fiume as a personal playground, as a place where he could experiment and practice everything that came to his mind. By making this film I wanted to keep D’Annunzio’s idea of Rijeka/Fiume as a playground, but this time the citizens of Rijeka are the ones who are playing.”
Anna Berthollet, CEO of Lightdox, said: “‘Fiume o morte!’ is a bold, genre-defying hybrid that masterfully unpacks one of history’s most bizarre occupations with irreverence and wit. Igor Bezinović’s defiant and punk cinematic journey challenges historical narratives, offering a timely lens on nationalism and the art of propaganda.”
Producer Vanja Jambrović adds: “We were hoping to make a film that successfully combines one bizarre event from 100 years ago and the challenging present time in which Europe faces again a rise of different nationalistic ideologies. We hope that people, no matter where they come from, will be able to read that message from the film.”
“Fiume o morte!” is produced by Jambrović and Tibor Keser for Restart in Croatia, in coproduction with Erica Barbiani for Videomante in Italy, and Marina Gumzi for Nosorogi in Slovenia.
The film has been supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Eurimages, Ministero della cultura – Direzione Generale Cinema e audiovisivo, Fondo per l’Audiovisivo del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Slovenian Film Center, Film Studio Viba Film Ljubljana, Media Programme of the European Commission, Croatian television – HRT, Slovenian television – RTV SLO, RE-ACT Co-Development Funding Scheme, the City of Rijeka, the City of Zagreb, Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission, ANGOA – PROCIREP and the Croatian Film Directors’ Guild.
