The Italian film world has been rocked by moviemakers' threats to pull out of the country's film festivals after parliament nixed recently introduced tax breaks.
Italian producers and directors' associations said they would no longer present their films at Venice, Rome or Turin until the measures were restored to this year's budget.
''It's crazy,'' said leading 'new wave' director Paolo Virzi.
''After years of subsidies, slammed by the centre right, we finally got these free-market tools from the centre left and now a centre-right government is taking them away from us''.
Under the tax credits and tax shelters brought in by the previous government, outside investors got a 40% break on profits they put into a film while film makers who turned a profit could reinvest it tax free.
Both measures have been taken out of the budget currently going through the Lower House, amid a bipartisan consensus that helping cinema is a long way down their political priorities.
On Thursday, however, actor-turned MP Luca Barbareschi warned his own government coalition that ''it is a political mistake to hamstring Italian cinema''.
Barbareschi, who owns his own production company as well as appearing regularly in TV films, noted that Italy was now enjoying economic growth ''but if we don't have a film industry we don't have an image in the world''.
Rome Film Festival Director Gian Luigi Rondi said he ''totally agreed'' with the film makers' grievances but thought that pulling their films from ''their natural showcases'' might backfire - especially at a time when Italian cinema is on a fest-fuelled roll after the recent Cannes success of Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo and Matteo Garrone's Gomorra.
''This protest is completely legitimate but I would have thought they would do something different, like the Hollywood screenwriters' strike,'' he said.
As well as their threatened boycott, the film makers have been calling for the head of Culture Minister Sandro Bondi who had promised them the tax breaks would be confirmed.
Bondi has been trying to persuade Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti to reinstate the measures and it has been reported that the Senate will look more kindly on them.
Tullio Kezich, the dean of Italian film critics, said Thursday: ''Minister Bondi is a reasonable man, who appears to want to get a deal.
''Certainly, if the (boycott) threat is not dropped, we would be in a crazy situation, but it was necessary for producers to take such a tough stance''.
