More than 40 Canadian senators and MPs have signed up to see the controversial film that has been cited several times as a reason for cracking down on the film industry — Young People F---ing.

A special screening of the movie is set for Thursday night in downtown Ottawa. It won't be out in commercial cinemas until later this summer.

The film, a sex comedy directed by Martin Gero, has been a flashpoint in the Senate debate over rules that would allow government to rescind film tax credits from films that have already been made.

Provisions in Bill C-10 would give the federal government the power to deny tax credits to Canadian movie and TV productions it deems "contrary to public policy."

Lobbyist Charles McVety told a Senate committee hearing into Bill C-10 that a film with such a title does not deserve funding from the Canadian public.

Senators have also questioned whether Young People F---ing might be the kind of work some Canadians might find unsuitable and offensive. They say such films should not be getting tax incentives.

But while the provocatively named film has been bandied about as an example, nobody but a few attendees at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival has actually seen it.

"It has a shocking title, but I think people should look beyond that — what is the actual value of the movie?" said Liberal MP Mark Holland, one of those who signed up for the special screening.

The list included four Conservative MPs, three Liberal MPs and two New Democrat MPs, including Bill Blaikie, an ordained minister.

"Given all the attention and controversy, I think we'd be well advised to go see it," Holland said on Monday. "Oftentimes in our society, things are condemned that nobody ever sees."

Canadian filmmakers have said Bill C-10 amounts to censorship, with director David Cronenberg saying there are no guidelines that could be put in place to prevent the provision being misused.

Filmmakers also say any provision that allows the government to retroactively withdraw a tax credit will make it difficult to raise financing.

The film's producer Steven Hoban told senators that had Bill C-10 been in place, the provision would have stopped his film from being made in Canada.

"I think a movie like Young People F**ing would not have been made if Bill C-10 had been in effect when we were going for financing the film," he said in February hearing.

"Just the optics you get with that kind of title, I think we wouldn't have gotten the tax credit and, again, if we didn't have that tax credit, it wouldn't have been possible to make that film here in Canada."

With files from the Canadian Press