Sunday, October 21, 2007

Coppola's new film premieres after 10-year silence





























Breaking a 10-year silence from the silver screen, U.S. director Francis Ford Coppola returned with his movie "Youth Without Youth."

"Youth Without Youth," a philosophical musing on the myth of eternal youth, was having its public premiere Saturday evening at the Rome Film Festival which runs until Oct. 27.

At an earlier screening for the press, reactions were mixed. The Oscar-winning director said Saturday audiences should be in no hurry before deciding if "Youth Without Youth" is good or bad.

"This film is really a fable story," Coppola told a news conference. "I didn't want to make a film that was inaccessible, but you must see it again, you get more the second time."

The film opens as linguistics professor Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), aged 70, is about to commit suicide when he gets struck by lightning. The accident gives him abnormal intellectual abilities which attract the attention of the Nazis as World World II looms. Turned into a fugitive, he is also tormented by dreams of his lost love.

"He wakes up and weeps, as I'm sure many old people do who find themselves alone." Coppola told reporters.

The film, shot in Romania over 18 months, is adapted from a novella by the Romanian philosopher-author Mircea Eliade.

Francis Ford Coppola is the director of "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather." His last film "The Rainmaker" was released in 1997.

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