Fiume o morte!

Fiume, now known as Rijeka in present-day Croatia, is the Adriatic port city at the center of Fiume o morte!. The film uses the contemporary streets of Rijeka as its primary filming location while recreating the city's historical appearance through archival photographs and on-site reenactments. This dual presence allows viewers to see how a contested past continues to live within a modern urban landscape.

Gabriele D'Annunzio was an Italian poet, nationalist, and political figure who led the occupation of Fiume in 1919 and later influenced the rise of Italian fascism. In Fiume o morte!, he is portrayed by at least five different performers, including Cenan Beljulji, Andrea Marsanich, and Milovan Vecerina Cico. This casting choice reflects the film's central idea that historical memory is fragmented, with each actor offering a different facet of how D'Annunzio is recalled and understood.

The documentary's core inquiry is whether D'Annunzio was motivated by personal vanity, by a genuine utopian vision for a new Italian state, or by an authoritarian nationalism that anticipated Mussolini's fascism. By staging his speeches, rituals, and political theater through multiple local actors, the film exposes how each of these readings can be supported by the historical record. Fiume o morte! ultimately invites viewers to weigh these interpretations themselves rather than offering a definitive answer.

Fiume o morte! treats memory as something actively reconstructed rather than passively preserved, weaving together archival photographs, oral recollections, and staged performances by Rijeka residents. Personal memories of the occupation mingle with theatrical reconstructions, blurring the line between what happened and how it is remembered. This approach argues that a community's past is shaped as much by present-day interpretation as by historical record.

Fiume o morte! focuses primarily on the period from September 1919 to December 1920, when Gabriele D'Annunzio led irregular forces in occupying the port of Fiume and declaring the Italian Regency of Carnaro. The occupation ended in bloodshed when Italian military forces clashed with D'Annunzio's legionaries in what became known as the Bloody Christmas of 1920. The film also extends into the present day, returning to modern Rijeka to explore how this chapter continues to shape local identity.

Fiume o morte! deliberately resists offering a single verdict on whether D'Annunzio was an egotistical dreamer, a utopian nationalist, or a proto-fascist who paved the way for Mussolini. Instead, the film presents these competing interpretations through different performances, archival fragments, and local perspectives. The ambiguity mirrors how residents of Rijeka themselves continue to debate his meaning, suggesting that history's moral judgments are never fully settled.

Rather than relying solely on narration or talking heads, Fiume o morte! stages history through auditions, rehearsals, and on-site performances by ordinary residents. This method turns the act of remembering into a visible, collaborative process, showing how communities physically inhabit their past. The meta-narrative invites viewers to witness not just the events of 1919 but the act of bringing them back to life.

By juxtaposing Italian nationalist rhetoric from D'Annunzio's era with present-day local recollections, the documentary highlights Fiume as a place where national belonging has long been disputed. The film frames identity itself as a battleground of memory, where Italian, Croatian, and local senses of self collide. Rather than resolving these tensions, Fiume o morte! presents them as an ongoing negotiation embedded in the city's streets and stories.

The documentary continually shifts between modern-day Rijeka streets and historical reconstructions, using archival photographs and local reenactments staged in the very places where the occupation unfolded. Residents of Rijeka perform the roles of soldiers, poets, and citizens from 1919, linking the city's present population directly to its layered past. This approach transforms the city itself into a bridge between memory and lived experience.

The documentary's directors deliberately cast residents of present-day Rijeka rather than professional actors, making the city's living community the carrier of its own history. This participatory approach turns memory into a collective act, with local people inhabiting the figures of D'Annunzio, soldiers, and historical witnesses. The result is a film where the boundary between past and present, performer and participant, becomes deliberately porous.

Guglielmo Marconi was the Italian inventor and Nobel laureate known for his pioneering work in radio technology, and he appears as a figure represented in Fiume o morte!'s reenactments, performed by Nikola Tutek. His inclusion situates D'Annunzio's occupation within the broader technological and political currents of early 20th-century Italy. The presence of a figure like Marconi reminds viewers that the Fiume episode intersected with major shifts in modern communication, propaganda, and mass politics.

The dancer, played by Noemi Dessardo, serves as a movement-based narrator whose choreography conveys emotional and historical texture that words alone cannot capture. Through physical performance, this character helps translate the rhythm and tension of the 1919 occupation into a felt, bodily experience. The role reflects Fiume o morte!'s broader belief that memory lives in the body as much as in records or speeches.