Fiume o Morte!

Croatia, Italy, Slovenia2025documentary112'The Balkans in Focus

In 1919, Gabriele D’Annunzio, an Italian poet, fascist and celebrity of the time, together with a unit of volunteers, occupied the port city of Fiume – today’s Rijeka – and proclaimed the establishment of his own state. For 16 months, he governed it as if it were the stage of a magnificent spectacle – with manifestos, patriotic ceremonies and grand gestures, preserved in numerous photographs and recordings from that period. Over 100 years later, the locals revisit this story and re-enact the events in the very same locations. The result is a perverse, absurd tale of how politics turns into theatre. The film won the European Film Award for Best Documentary.