The protest was expressed in an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister Victor Ponta and to the Minister of Development Liviu Dragnea and signed by (among others) directors Lucian Pintilie, Cristi Puiu, Călin Netzer, Corneliu Porumboiu, Radu Muntean, Radu Jude, and producers Ada Solomon and Tudor Giurgiu.

In an apparent reply to the protest in a declaration quoted by the Romanian press agency Mediafax the prime minister Victor Ponta said that the funding for production of Romanian films administrated by the National Centre for Cinema will remain the same. He also said that the decentralization of the administration of cinemas will go on with the exception of some four or five cinemas which will be kept by the state in order to host domestic openings.

The budget of the Film Fund, which is financing film production, decreased from 9m EUR/40m RON in 2007 to 5.6m EUR/ 25m RON in 2012. The Film Fund is administrated by the National Centre for Cinema, and is not supported by the state budget, but from a variety of commercial sources including advertising revenues and film sales.

Filmmakers also disagree with the proposal to move art house cinemas administrated by RADEF România Film to the jurisdiction of local councils. The filmmakers stated that in 2008, RADEF România Film handed 107 cinema theatres to local councils and only three of them are still used as cinema theatres, despite the legal requirement that they be used as cinemas for 15 years.

Filmmakers are suggesting that the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage should take control of 26 cinema theatres from RADEF and manage them as a network of theatres able to screen Romanian and European films, given the fact that multiplexes refuse to show domestic films.

RADEF Romania Film, which inherited the former pre-1990 state cinema network, currently operates 32 screens in 21 towns.