FROM THE NEWS ARCHIVES OF CINEMA CONFIDENTIAL

Francis Ford Coppola to direct indie
POSTED ON 09/23/05 AT 9:30 A.M.
BY ETHAN AAMES

Variety reports that Francis Ford Coppola will return to the director's chair after an eight-year hiatus.

Coppola will direct a low budget indie titled "Youth Without Youth," which will be based on a novella by Romanian author Mircea Eliade.

Described as a surreal drama, the story tells of an academic whose life changes forever when he experiences a cataclysmic incident in the run-up to the second world war.

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

Production begins in October in Bucharest.