Coppola rediscovers his 'Youth Without Youth'

The legendary director is to go behind the camera for the first time in nearly a decade.

Sep 23 2005

Francis Ford Coppola is to return to the director's chair after an eight-year absence.

The Oscar-winning director, whose previous credits include 'The Godfather', 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Gardens of Stone', will come out of self-imposed exile to direct an adaptation of Mircea Eliade's 1988 novel 'Youth Without Youth'.

The book, which itself is partly based on a 19th century Romanian story, tells the tale of an elderly professor who becomes young when struck by a bolt of lightening. He is then pursued as a fugitive across the globe, passing through Romania, Switzerland, Malta and India.

Speaking in a statement, Coppola said: '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.'

Calling the project 'a return to the ambitions I had for work in cinema as a student', Coppola will script, direct and even finance the film himself, through his American Zoetrope company.

'Youth Without Youth', which will star Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara, starts production on October 3, and should hit UK screens late next year, just in time for the 2006 awards season.