Fiume o morte Wins FIPRESCI Grand Prix
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- "Fiume o morte!" won the FIPRESCI Documentary Grand Prix at the opening ceremony of the 23rd Millennium Docs Against Gravity, the second-largest documentary film festival in Europe.
- Director Igor Bezinović shot the film in 2019, 100 years after Gabriele D'Annunzio's fascist occupation of Fiume, teaming up with 300 residents for a subversive, punk-style reenactment that the festival says "dismantles nationalist myths and exposes the spectacle of political performativity."
- The film had already collected the European Film Award for Best European Documentary plus Rotterdam's Tiger Award and FIPRESCI Jury Prize before Thursday's Grand Prix.
- The other Grand Prix nominees were "2000 Meters to Andriivka" (Mstyslav Chernov), "Mr. Nobody Against Putin" (David Borenstein, Pavel Talanki), "Orwell: 2+2=5" (Raoul Peck), and "The Perfect Neighbor" (Geeta Gandbhir).
- Millennium Docs Against Gravity runs May 8–17 in seven Polish cities — Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdynia, Poznań, Katowice, Łódź, and Bydgoszcz — and online May 19–June 1 at mdag.pl.
- Starting this year, MDAG will also field a three-member FIPRESCI jury for its Main Competition, with that winner announced May 14 during the festival's awards ceremony.
Why it matters: The Grand Prix stacks a third major critics' honor on "Fiume o morte!" after its European Film Award and Rotterdam Tiger Award, effectively making it the most decorated documentary of the cycle so far. The festival also used the opening to announce a new FIPRESCI Main Competition jury — expanding MDAG's footprint on the European critics' circuit at a festival that qualifies films for the Academy Awards.
