Petition to stop Rome cinemas being turned into shopping malls follows similar appeals from architect Renzo Piano and footballer Francesco Totti.

Leading movie directors have launched an appeal calling on Italian authorities to prevent Rome cinemas from being converted into shopping malls, hotels and supermarkets.

The petition, addressed to Italian president Sergio Mattarella and prime minister Giorgia Meloni, was signed by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, Wes Anderson and Ari Aster.

Profound sacrilege

Describing moves to transform Rome cinemas into retail spaces as "utterly unacceptable", the letter states: "Such a transformation would represent an irrevocable loss: a profound sacrilege not only to the city’s rich history but also to the cultural legacy for the future generations."

Citing the recent "eloquent" intervention of Italian architect Renzo Piano on the matter, the letter calls on film and festival directors across the globe to add their names to the petition to "save the last chance for redemption of one of the most important cultural and artistic cities worldwide."

• Rome cinemas showing films in English

"It’s our duty to transform these abandoned "cathedrals in the desert" into true temples of culture, places capable of nourishing the souls of both present and future generations", the petition concludes.

Among the more than 5,000 people that have signed the appeal are leading figures from Italy's world of cinema are Paola Cortellesi, Isabella Rossellini, Pierfrancesco Favino, Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone.

Renzo Piano

The letter, published in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, follows the publication of Piano's "heartfelt" appeal in La Repubblica in which he described cinemas as "precious 'places for the people'".

"Those spaces, whether active or abandoned, represent the last lungs of oxygen for our cities, increasingly saturated with cars, shopping centres, hotels and vacation homes", Piano wrote, warning that new legislation permitting the reconversion of cinemas will become "the tombstone of our metropolises in a few years, damaging everything, including retail trade."

Piano warned that if cinemas can be converted, after a few years of closure, into places "exclusively aimed at profit", the value of those properties will rise, and the decline of movie theatres will be "inevitable".

According to Piano, the prospect of making lucrative earnings by converting former cinemas into retail units, will lead the owners of the property "to prefer the termination of contracts with the managers of cultural activities and the closure of those structures for years".

Francesco Totti

Roma legend Francesco Totti has also hit out at the growing trend, saying: "The cinemas of our childhood cannot become more shopping malls”.

The footballer recalls his childhood in the Porta Metronia area of the capital, when he dreamt "not only of football, but also of going to the cinema", describing movie theatres as "places of memories, of magic, of daydreams."

"Remembering moments as teenagers and kids spent at the cinema is a tradition and a value that we must pass on to the new generations" - Totti said - "We need places for sports, culture, kindergartens and schools, not more shopping malls."

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