All roads lead to Rome film fest.

Now that the MIFED film market is gone, and the Venice Film Festival stands on shaky ground, Rome is the most recent Italian city to attempt the creation of a film-cum-market festival. A six-to-eight million euro festival, called the Festa del Cinema, is being planned for October 2006, and would take place across the "eternal city." But with film executives foregoing the now-defunct MIFED in favor of the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica, California, and with many film festivals taking place in the highly saturated fall festival season, the necessity for a new international film market in Italy remains questionable.

Those who support the new festival say that since AFM focuses more on Asian and American films, the international community will need a Euro-centric market to replace MIFED. Among those supporters is former Communist mayor and Rome film buff, Walter Vehroni, who is said to be courting Robert De Niro as a potential advisor for Rome's Festa. De Niro could build a bridge with Hollywood and the New York independent film scene through his own Tribeca Film Festival.

There is a political slant to this controversy as well; Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing party appointed the Venice Film Festival's boss, Marco Muller, while Rome's Veltroni is a prominent member of the main opposition, the Democratic Party of the Left.

As the reincarnation of the now-defunct MIFED market in Milan continues to be planned out in the manner of a soap opera, many speculate that MIFED may join forces with the proposed Rome festival in order to revive itself.