World premiere of Fiume o morte! by Igor Bezinović at 54th IFF Rotterdam
Igor Bezinović’s latest film, the documentary-fiction Fiume o morte! produced by Restart, has been included in the prestigious main competition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The same programme will also screen the world premiere of Restart’s co-production, Wind, Talk to Me by Stefan Đorđević (Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia), as well as the minority co-production, Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master, by Ivan Salatić (Dinaridi Film). The festival takes place in Rotterdam, 30th January – 9th February 2025.
Fiume o morte! is scheduled to premiere in IFFR’s Tiger Competition, celebrating the innovative and adventurous spirit of up-and-coming filmmakers from all over the world, while the film thematises the historical event from about a hundred years ago in which Italian poet and war advocate Gabriele D’Annunzio captured the city of Rijeka. The film arrives in cinemas across Croatia in mid-February, distributed by Restart Label, with the Croatian premiere taking place in Rijeka.
The award-winning filmmaker Igor Bezinović, recipient of the 2017 Grand Golden Arena for his fiction feature A Brief Excursion (also screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam as the part of the Bright Future side programme), in his latest title creatively examines the consequences of the occupation for the city and its inhabitants. In order to find answers, the director recruits the residents of Rijeka, which the Italians call Fiume, who recount, reconstruct and reinterpret the bizarre tale of the 16-month occupation of their city in 1919 by Italian poet, dandy and war supporter Gabriele D’Annunzio.
Bezinović, a native of Rijeka, takes D’Annunzio’s occupation as the starting point for the film and in an authentic and original way creates a cinematic testimony of a historical episode that deeply affected his hometown. That is, after the First World War, the political parties could not agree on who the city should belong to – the Kingdom of Italy or the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
“The stalemate of negotiations and political debate was exploited by a colourful character, Gabriele D’Annunzio, an Italian poet, dandy and celebrity of his time, who was obsessed with the war and who, backed by Italian military deserters, occupied the city and stayed in it for 16 months, until the official Italian army expelled him. This story is very well known in Italy, it is taught in Italian schools, and I tried to tell it from my own perspective and the perspective of today’s residents of Rijeka”, explains the author.
Hundreds of Rijeka residents responded to the invitation to participate in the film, so Bezinović decided to use the medium of film to revive the very rich archive of the occupation, which consisted of a multitude of photographs and reels, reconstructing them in the same places where these events occurred.
The film is a Restart production, with producers Vanja Jambrović and Tibor Keser, in co-production with houses Nosorogi from Slovenia (co-producer Marina Gumzi) and Videomante from Italy (co-produce Erica Barbiani).
Restart also has another title in the Tiger Competition programme – the minority co-production Wind, Talk to Me of director and screenwriter Stefan Đorđević. The Croatian co-producer is again Vanja Jambrović.
The hybrid feature follows Stefan (34) who hits a dog with his car and, overcome with guilt, decides to take it with him to the lake where he is headed to finish a film about his mother, who recently passed away. The film is produced by Non-Aligned Films from Serbia, Spok Film from Slovenia, and Restart from Croatia.
Last year the project won a special mention at the industry platform Les Arcs Work in Progress.
The Tiger Competition will screen yet another Croatian minority co-production – Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master the sophomore feature directed and written by Ivan Salatić. Set in the 19th century, the film tells the story of Morlak, a poet and ruler of Montenegrin tribes. Terminally ill, he sets out on a journey in search of a cure. On this journey to the south of the Mediterranean, he is accompanied by his faithful servant Đuko. Torn between duty and longing for his native land, Đuko faces his master’s fate, struggling with jealousy, nostalgia, and a sense of inevitable doom.
The film is produced by company Meander Film from Montenegro, with co-production partners Nightswim from Italy, Bocalupo Films from France, Dinaridi Film from Croatia (co-producer Tena Gojić) and Non-Aligned Films from Serbia.
A list of titles announced so far is available at this link.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place 30th January – 9th February 2025, while the full programme will be announced in the coming weeks.