Not since mooted horror flick Twixt have we seen Francis Ford Coppola step behind the camera to direct a feature film, but news emerging from this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival indicates that the Godfather helmer and all-round cinema icon is currently prepping for his next feature, which may be his last as a director.
Entitled Distant Vision, the director claimed it is shaping up to be “very different from a normal film” in that it will be pitched as a generation-spanning epic, one that shouldn’t necessarily be defined by a single medium.
“I may only make one film more in my life, but it may be very long, and it may go in different places,” said the five-time Oscar winner.”It’s sort of like Buddenbrooks because it’s about three generations of a family. It happens during the birth of television; the growth and omnipresence of television and finally the end of television as it turns into the internet. Then I decided that I wanted to do it as live television.”
It’s the first tease of the dormant project in over two years, and Coppola’s ambitious concept for the sprawling drama indicates that it could very well be one of his most ambitious in some time. Should the director remain committed to this kernel of an idea, Distant Vision will release as a lengthy, live-televised event film, and during the festival, Coppola touched base on the dynamic nature of film and television in recent times.
“It has all become one. There is no more film, there is no more television – there is cinema. And it can be everywhere and anywhere and it can do anything.”
Will Distant Vision call time on Francis Ford Coppola‘s prestigious, genre-defining career behind the lens? Time will tell.
