Milan - Italian state sponsorship for a film based on a memoir by a former leftist terrorist has sparked outrage among relatives of victims of the wave of urban guerrilla attacks that bloodied the country in the 1970s and '80s.

On Thursday a top anti-terrorism prosecutor, Armando Spataro, also criticized the 1.5 million euro (1.8 million dollars) subsidy for the film, the Corriere della Sera daily said.

The film is budgeted for 6.4 million dollars according to trade publication Variety.

Titled after the name of a terrorist group, La Prima Linea (The Front Line) is based on the book Miccia Corta (Short Fuse) by one of the group's co-founders, Sergio Segio.

The 54-year-old Segio, who was implicated in a series of murders including the gunning down of a Milan magistrate in 1979, spent some 22 years in prison before his 2004 release.

Segio, who currently works for a prisoners' rights group, has failed to "unequivocally" distance himself from his past, Spataro told the Milan-based Corriere della Sera.

Spataro praised a decision by Milan's local authorities this week to freeze the municipality's sponsorship of the film, and called on Culture Minister Sandro Bondi to do the same.

Benedetta Tobagi whose father Walter, a Corriere della Sera journalist, was murdered by leftist extremists in 1980, also expressed her dismay.

"I don't contest the freedom to make a film, what worries me is the support granted by the Culture Ministry," she said

The film features two of Italy's brightest young cinema stars, Riccardo Scamarcio as Segio, and Giovanna Mezzogiorno in the role of another terrorist Susanna Ronconi, a member of the more notorious Red Brigades.

Ronconi was sprung from prison in 1982 in a Segio-led Prima Linea attack in which one person was killed.

The film which is in production and is due for release later this year, risks glamorizing the terrorist violence, according to Tobagi.

"We will now have the dishy hunk as a terrorist," she said, referring to Scamarcio's heartthrob status in Italy.

According to producer Gianluca Arcopinto the film's screenplay was shown to representatives of several victims of terrorism associations.

Amid "some contrasting views," Bondi in December 2008 approved the subsidy, Arcopinto said, according to Miccia Corta's website. (dpa)