Mifed has cancelled the Milan Selected Screenings in response to industry pressure.

"We took the decision following AFM, where buyers told us that this was not useful," said Giuseppe Zola, president of Mifed organiser, Rassegne. "Buyers want to minimise the time on the road and preferred to be in Mifed proper."

For the last two years, Mifed organisers had laid on two days of additional screenings in commercial theatres in central Milan, ahead of the main film market in the Fiera.

Mifed says that the decision to cancel the downtown screenings helps underline the differences between Mifed and the pre-Mifed screenings. "London is not a market," said Zola. "Buyers and sellers want proximity between screening rooms and sellers booths."

The move is one of many that Mifed plans to institute (Oct 28-Nov 1) now that responsibility for organising the market has switched to private company Rassegne away from the Fiera itself. "Now that we have a client-provider relationship we can ask for more precise changes," said Zola. "Improved conditions in the screening rooms will be the first sign of this, and in the longer term there will be bigger offices." Zola says that he wants eventually to bring the market into a single pavilion instead of being spread out across four different areas.