A new academy that aims to mould the future masters of Italian cinema arts has begun classes at Rome's legendary Cinecitta' studios.

The ACT (Academy of Cinema and Television) Multimedia school aims to give aspiring talents the opportunity to learn about the industry from experts who are making a success of it .

Top Italian directors, actors, editors, screenwriters, make-up artists, photographers, 3D animators and journalists have been enlisted to join the teaching staff.

"The initiative aims to harvest this vast, precious legacy of know-how and use it for the cinema of tomorrow," said ACT Director Vittorio Giacci. In the process the academy hopes to contribute to reviving Italian cinema .

Italian professionals continue to play a lead role in some areas of the industry, like costume design, and there is a handful of highly promising home-grown young directors, such as Ferzan Ozpetek and Gabriele Muccino, coming through. But film critics agree that Italian cinema today is some way from the post-war highs it hit with fabled filmmakers like Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti .

The academy is well-positioned to inspire the next generation of Italian filmmakers to follow in those illustrious footsteps .

The likes of Fellini, Visconti and De Sica produced much of their best work at Cinecitta' and the studios and the City of Rome continue to play a starring role in the industry .

Mel Gibson shot parts of The Passion at Cinecitta', while Ocean's Twelve and Mission Impossible III are among the movies Rome has recently provided backdrops for .

Academy students will have access to an archive packed with screenplays, film posters, books, specialist periodicals, around 15,000 videos, DVDs and laserdiscs and 20,000 photographs .

As well as learning how make to feature films, they will also be drilled on directing for television and making adverts, music videos and documentaries .

"Our teaching for directors aims to form the most complete filmmakers possible," said Giacci .

The academy runs three-year courses for budding directors, actors and 3D animators and short courses in cinema make-up and hair-dressing .