Italy's new culture ministerFrancesco Rutelli has dismissed state-owned Cinecitta Holding's entire board of directors.

Cinecitta Holding owns distributor IstitutoLuce, which is also involved in production and exhibition, and promotional bodyFilm Italia. Cinecitta Holding is also a shareholderin the Italian capital's Cinecitta Studios.

Inparticular, Cinecitta Holding is directly involved infilm restoration and worldwide retrospectives on film stars and directors.

Amongthe list of reasons Rutelli cited for his decisionwere large financial losses at one Cinecitta Holding-ownedcompany, infighting between Cinecitta Holding, Istituto Luce and Film Italia, and failure to obtain government permissionon ambitious development plans, to notify the government of appointments of newboard members or to give proof of their adequacy for their role.

Rutelli pointed out that Mediaport,the Cinecitta Holding-owned multiplex chain that was createdin 1996 and has 69 screens across Italy - has incurred losses of morethan $25m (Euros 20m).

Rutelli has temporarily named GaetanoBlandini, currently head of the government's filmdepartment, chief executive of Cinecitta Holdinguntil July 30.

Untilthen, Maria Giuseppina Troccoliwill take over Blandini's role at the state filmdepartment, which awards production and distribution funds to Italian films.

Overthe course of the next month, Blandini has been askedto analyse the financial state of the company and to "radically"redefine both its identity and objectives.

"Thegroup's role must not just be about looking for new business opportunities orbeing competitive on the market," Rutelli said."It must also better serve and support the protagonists of Italian cinema,who must remain the directors, producers, distributors, exhibitors, techniciansand craftspeople."

Cinecitta Holding has recently seen its funds slashedby 30%, due to massive industry-wide cuts to government entertainment funds by Silvio Berlusconi's government.

Becauseof the cuts, last month, Cinecitta Holding directorgeneral Alessandro Usai and marketing head Fabio Fabbi were both asked to step down.

Theoutgoing Cinecitta Holding president is Carlo Fuscagni.