The Circuit

by Addie Morfoot
After Saturday’s mixed reaction to Rome Film Festival press screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Youth Without Youth,” the helmer’s first film in a decade, the acclaimed director publicly asked the press and general audiences, prior to the pic’s world premiere later that day, to restrain from having any definitive conclusions about the film until they saw it more than once.

The highly anticipated Coppola project is his first film since 1997’s “The Rainmaker.”

Pic stars Tim Roth (pictured with Coppola) is a story about a 70-year-old Romanian professor of linguistics who miraculously becomes younger after being struck by lightning.

Helmer stated at a press conference just hours before the world premiere that "I don't think artists can make films worried about what the immediate reaction is; they can only hope that perhaps the audience will find them interesting. I think we should be tolerant of artists who want to break new ground, and not require them to make gangster films all their lives," he went on to add, drawing a burst of applause.

Editor's note:  Read Variety's review of "Youth Without Youth" here, by Jay Weissberg.