Fiume o morte!

DSR Evening in collaboration with the Dokudoc Festival.
Pre-premiere.

In 1919, eccentric Italian poet, dandy, and fervent militarist Gabriele D’Annunzio, dissatisfied with the decision of the Paris Peace Conference to assign Fiume—present-day Rijeka—to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, unilaterally declared the city an independent state. The sixteen-month occupation that followed is considered one of the most bizarre experiments in the history of political rule.

Just over a century later, Rijeka-born filmmaker Igor Bezinović invites his fellow citizens to join him in reimagining and reenacting this extraordinary chapter of their city’s history.

Fiume o morte! is a film about poetry, dynamite, cocaine, machine guns, football, airplanes, flying furniture, concerts, prisons, sunbathing, thousands of soldiers, millions of bullets, endless speeches, a platypus, and the power of political performativity. D’Annunzio could be seen as a pioneer—perhaps even the founder—of the grotesque political spectacle that defines much of our present age.

Distribution: Nosorogi

Minoriti Open Air Cinema • Organization and production Puppet theater Maribor, Minoriti cultural quarter, Society for the development of film culture • The program is supported by the Municipality of Maribor • Sponsors Radenska, Lunos, OTP banka