The Youth Is Out There

Sofia Coppola may be in the spotlight now for Lost In Translation, but her daddy is no shlub. Francis Ford Coppola enlightened the world with The Godfather Trilogy, and changed the face of filmmaking. So why haven't you heard his name in a while? Well, because he took a hiatus from movies. And it just happened to span 8 years in length.

According to Variety, he's back, and he's easing in slowly with Youth Without Youth. The self-financed, low-budget picture is based on the novella by Romanian author Mircea Eliade. Coppola has written the screenplay and the film will star Tim Roth (yay!), Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, and Marcel Lures.

The story is about a professor who becomes a fugitive, after an incident during the dark time before World War II. He flees across Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and India. Sounds like "The Amazing Race" except without the hefty cash prize, and the fun.

"I was excited to discover, in this tale by Eliade, the key themes that I most hope to understand better: time, consciousness, and the dreamlike basis of reality”, Coppola reports. "For me, it is indeed a return to the ambitions I had for work in cinema as a student.”

Welcome back, Fran. Production begins October 3rd.