This film review essay examines the film Fiume o morte! (2025) by Igor Bezinović as a form of performative historiography that reconfigures memory through reenactment, archival reappropriation, and collective participation. Focusing on the 1919–1921 occupation of the city of Rijeka/Fiume by the Italian writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, the film exposes the constructed and contingent nature of historical narratives by fragmenting identity and transforming the city into a living memoryscape. Through participatory performances involving those who live in the city today, history and memory emerge as dynamic, negotiated, and embodied processes and practices. At the same time, the film articulates a critical stance towards militarism, political spectacle, and nationalist imaginaries, positioning memory as a site of communal engagement and critical confrontation with both the past and the present.
