The Italian film world was dismayed by the failure of critically acclaimed Mafia drama Gomorrah to make the cut for the best foreign film Oscar.
Rome Film Festival chief Gianluigi Rondi called the decision ''a mistake'' and top director Paolo Virzi said it was an ''injustice''.
The influential film critic of Corriere della Sera, Paolo Mereghetti, said ''they just don't want Italian films in Hollywood'' while his counterpart at Repubblica, Natalia Aspesi, voiced ''regret at the strange exclusion of this great, important, sincere and tragic film, one of the few which have restored lustre to Italian cinema''.
The film's producer, Domenico Procacci, said ''I really don't understand what happened'', adding that the Oscar fight ''was supposed to be a showdown between Gomorrah and Waltz With Bashir,'' which he said pipped Gomorrah at the recent Golden Globes ''by a handful of votes''.
Gomorrah's director, Matteo Garrone, who adapted Roberto Saviano's bestselling expose' of the Naples' Camorra syndicate, was too choked to speak to reporters.
But Culture Undersecretary Francesco Giro noted that Charlie Chaplin never got an Oscar and said the decision should be ''met with Chaplin's melancholy smile''.
The film, which Garrone described as recounting a ''war 150 km south of Rome,'' picked up the second prize at Cannes last year and five European Film Awards.
It is up for a British Film Academy Award (BAFTA) next month.
Gomorrah's exclusion left nine films vying to make the final Oscar shortlist of five, including Waltz With Bashir, from Israel, and last year's Cannes top prize winner The Class, from France.
The others are: Revanche (Austria), The Necessities of Life (Sweden), Departures (Japan), Three Monkeys (Turkey), Tear This Heart Out (Mexico) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany).
