AP News, September 27th, 2007
Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in a decade, "Youth Without Youth," will have its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival next month, organizers said Thursday.
The five-time Academy Award winner's first movie since 1997's "The Rainmaker" stars Tim Roth as a professor-turned-fugitive as World War II approaches. Filmed in Romania, the movie is adapted from a novella by Romanian philosopher-author Mircea Eliade and will be screened out of competition.
"It is a film that we strongly wanted. ... Coppola, who is back with a philosophical noir, will be here. It's a film that will leave a sign and will make people talk," said Piera Detassis, one of the festival's directors.
Also being presented out of competition will be "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," starring Oscar winner Cate Blanchett in the role of Queen Elizabeth I. This follow-up to 1998's "Elizabeth," which earned Blanchett her first nomination, tells the life of the 16th-century English monarch as she juggles romantic temptation, political opposition and the threat of conquest by Spain.
Besides Blanchett, other stars who are expected include Clive Owen, Reese Witherspoon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Halle Berry, Robert Redford, Gerard Depardieu, as well as Coppola's daughter, fellow director Sofia Coppola.
The second annual festival, running Oct. 18-27, features 14 movies in competition, including "La Deuxieme Souffle" ("Second Wind"), starring Daniel Auteuil and Monica Bellucci, and "El Pasado" ("The Past"), with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal.
Other festival events include public meetings and conferences with Jane Fonda, Terrence Malick and Sophia Loren.
The competition's 50-member public jury is made up of selected moviegoers from Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, who won the best foreign film Oscar with 2001's "No Man's Land," will preside over the jury.
