Francis Coppola Makes A Come Back With The Film "Youth Without Youth"

After a 10-year break away from the film industry, Francis Coppola, the five-time Academy Award winner, film director, producer, and screenwriter returns to film-making with the film, Youth Without Youth following the accomplished movie The Rainmaker since 1997, based on John Grisham's 1995 novel, The Rainmaker.

The film, Youth Without Youth is an adaptation of a novella by the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade, which explores language, theology, the idea of the doppelgänger.

The central character is Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) a 70-year-old Romanian linguistics professor in pre-second world war Bucharest, who, in the midst of a possibly terminal depression, is struck by lightning and thus magically restored to the prime of life. Suddenly reinvigorated, Dominic can immerse himself again in his pet subject, the roots of language and religion, learning all the world's languages by a mysterious process of osmosis while conversing with his own alter ego and falling in love with two incarnations of the same mystically gifted woman.

It's bold and packed with ideas, but also fatally unformed, unconvincing and, on occasion, laughably pretentious - and too often you imagine that the central character will awaken to discover that it has all been a dream, and a pretty bad one at that.

But critics believe that the film might taste like fast food, suggesting that it might not contain the quality and style that characterizes Coppola's Oscar award-winning movies such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Coppola, 68, funded "Youth Without Youth" on his own, using profits from his lucrative Napa Valley wine business, and as a result he's dubbed it his independent film.

The film is being distributed through Sony Pictures Classics in the United States and now showing in theaters since December 14. It was released in France on November 14.

View Youth Without Youth Trailer here

Career in Filmmaking and Screenwriting at NY Film Academy

Are you interested in joining the next generation of filmmakers and actors in one of the most innovative and dynamic film schools and acting schools in the world? The New York Film Academy welcomes that generation.

With intensive, hands-on filmmaking, screenwriting, computer animation, and acting for film programs, the academy welcomes students from all over the world who develop an invaluable network of classmates that often provide opportunities for future work in the film industry.

Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers and stars such as Steven Spielberg, Susan Sarandon, etc have chosen to send their children to the film schools and acting schools of the New York Film Academy. Yet, some of the best projects to come out of the New York Film Academy are from students with no connections to the industry.

The following clip is from "Danny and the Ocean", a film written, directed by a New York Film Academy student named Abraham Heisler.

The Academy has film and acting locations in New York, London, Florence, Paris, Shangai, Bilbao, Milan, Abu Dhabi, Seoul, Budapest, Sardinia, Havard University, Universal Studios in Hollywood and Disney-MGM Studios in Florida.

Will the Kite keep flying for "The Kite Runner"?

The book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini became a runaway best-seller in 2003 based largely on positive word-of-mouth among readers throughout the world. But can the Hollywood movie persuade fans of the book to see the film?

That's the intriguing question facing Paramount Vantage, the art-house arm of Paramount Pictures, after it embarked on an unusual marketing strategy to develop awareness of The Kite Runner movie among the novel's many fans.

The Marc Forster-directed film, which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 21, tells the story of an emigre who, after spending years in California, returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his boyhood friend's son, who is in trouble. The film depicts Afghanistan as ruins where savages live and only the Johnny Walker drinking rich class who moved to the US deserves any sort of sympathy.

All around the United States, several "Kite Runner Clubs" are being set up as part of the marketing effort for The Kite Runner. Clubs with 200 members will receive copies of the book signed by the author, Khaled Hosseini and 100-member clubs will attend advanced screenings of the film in their hometowns along with family and friends.