by Mary Glucksman

Francis Ford Coppola was always a beat ahead of his times. Twenty years ago, following the grueling production of Apocalypse Now, Coppola bet the future of his Zoetrope Studios on a picture called One From the Heart. He hailed the picture as revolutionary in its introduction of video technology and effects to the filmmaking process. "The day is sooner than we think when films will be distributed electronically by satellite," he told Variety in 1980 as he detailed a vision of shooting on high-res videotape and transmitting directly to high-density TV receivers.

But while Coppola's musings may have been prescient, his timing with the film could hardly have been worse. The studios hadn't yet figured out had to coexist with the new technologies and the press spun the director's lofty predictions into a doomsday scenario for old-guard Hollywood which reacted in predictable fashion. Paramount, then under the stewardship of Barry Diller, backed away from Heart's release and the Zoetrope Studios plant was shortly thereafter put on the auction block.

Of course, Coppola kept working, directing such films as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rumblefish, and The Godfather 3. And he founded a fiction magazine, also named Zoetrope, to develop writers and potential film material. But Coppola's vision of Zoetrope the studio has waxed and waned over the years as the director turned to director-for-hire work like Jack and The Rainmaker.

Recently, however, the Zoetrope name has sparked excitement once again. First there was daughter Sofia Coppola's surprisingly affecting The Virgin Suicides. And now comes a three-year ten-film co-production deal between United Artists and Zoetrope. First out of the gate and shooting in Paris and Luxembourg is son Roman Coppola's CQ (as in Seek You), his first feature after an award-winning stint making music videos for the likes of Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Moby and Air. Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey, Saving Private Ryan) stars in the '60s-set CQ as an idealistic young filmmaker obsessed with documenting his daily life. But this life takes a 180-degree turn when he's first fired from and then hired back to salvage the runaway science fiction flick he's been crewing on. Roman Coppola describes the film as "David Holzman directs Barbarella. CQ also features Elodie Bouchez (The Dreamlife of Angels), Coppola cousin Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Gerard Depardieu, and Carson as a cranky film critic.

Next up from Zoetrope are Hal Hartley's Monster (currently wrapping production in Manhattan), starring Sarah Polley; Victor Salva's (Powder) horror pic Jeepers Creepers; Assassination Tango, written by and starring real-life tango fanatic Robert Duvall as a hit man sent on a mission to Argentina; a biopic about Frieda Kahlo, directed by Luis Valdez (La Bamba), starring Jennifer Lopez as the monobrow Mexican painter; and the Christina Ricci vehicle, Pumpkin. Coppola pere is also said to be at work on the script he'll shoot next fall but isn't talking about it yet.

The official site for CQ is at http://www.cqfilm.com. (Password: dragonfly)

For additional information, contact: American Zoetrope, 916 Kearny Street, San Francisco, CA 94133. Tel: (415) 788-7500.

Also check out: http://www.zoetrope.com (Francis Ford Coppola's "virtual studio").