In response, Mr Taranto's lawyers wrote to Mr Florence's on May 3 to inform them that the offer of a long term lease had been withdrawn, raising the prospect that Mr Florence could soon be Astorless.

The Age has since learned that solicitors acting for Mr Florence had in fact been instructed "to suspend negotiations regarding the long-term lease" on April 4.

In an email to The Age a week ago, Mr Florence noted that in "nearly a year" since Mr Taranto had purchased the Astor "little work has been done on the building". He added "we are negotiating a long-term lease with Mr Taranto" that would "give The Astor certainty for many years" but "there are quite a few matters which have to be sorted out".

Relations between the two, who have known each other more than 20 years, are now so fractious that they will enter mediation next week, when the cinema plays host to the St Kilda Film Festival.

At issue is the thorny question of who owns The Astor. On paper, that is Mr Taranto, who bought the building from St Michael's Grammar last August after the school's plans to develop it as a multi-purpose performance space (with a cinema component) sparked a very damaging social media campaign.

The school would not reveal how much the building was sold for but it is believed to be less than the $3.8 million it had paid for it a year earlier.

However, Mr Florence and his supporters draw a clear distinction between The Astor as a business and the building that houses it. In his email last week, Mr Florence signed off as "proprietor, The Astor Theatre". He also referred to Mr Taranto as having purchased not the Astor but merely "the freehold of the building which houses the Astor".

Certainly, Mr Florence's connections to the Astor run deep. He owns the "Astor Theatre" name and business, has managed the venue since 1982 and has worked tirelessly to preserve it as one of the last working single-screen picture palaces in the country. He has claimed that the famous signage on the Chapel Street facade is his too.

But Mr Taranto is also deeply invested. He had planned to finance his purchase and restoration of the Astor with the sale of another St Kilda cinema, The George, but it was passed in at auction last year. In February, it was finally sold, for a sum believed to be around $2.3 million. In the interim, Mr Taranto took out a loan to cover the purchase of The Astor and sold the property on Blessington Street in which he had lived for 57 years. He now lives in rental accommodation.