Coppola loses new film and archives of 15 years in burglary

DPA, as cited on www.earthtimes.org

Buenos Aires - Burglars stole 15 years of work from US film director Francis Ford Coppola, including the screenplay of his upcoming feature Tetro, he said in a newspaper Friday. "There is no film. They took all my archives, my memories, all my things of the past 15 years. It's terrible," Coppola said in the Friday edition of the Argentine daily La Nacion.

Police said four armed men entered the director's house in the Palermo neighbourhood in northern Buenos Aires late Wednesday. Initial reports said there were five burglers.

The thieves found no cash, and left with four computers, back-up copies and other electronic devices.

An employee offered a reward for the return of the computers or at least the hard drives on behalf of The Godfather director, who was born in the US city of Detroit.

The filming of his latest project, Tetro, set to tell the story of Italian artists who migrated to Argentina, was scheduled to start in February in Buenos Aires.

"The only thing we want to ask, on behalf of Mr Coppola, is that they please return at least the information that is inside his computer, which holds all his creative work of a very long time," an employee of the director said Thursday.

She added that the artist behind classic films like Apocalypse Now is very upset about the incident.

The house where Coppola lives in Buenos Aires also functions as the seat of his production company. The 550-square-metre, two-floor building was bought for 900,000 dollars, according to the public Argentine news agency Telam.

Coppola's total investment in Argentina in this project is set to amount to some 3 million dollars, not including the salaries of the stars of the film.