Coppola comeback at Rome film festival

By Silvia Aloisi

ROME (Reuters) - Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in 10 years is likely to be the top attraction at the Rome film festival next month.

Like its main Italian rival the Venice festival, which ended earlier this month, the lineup in Rome this year is laden with U.S. productions exploring the U.S. response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and a tarnished image of America.

That is the case with Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs", in which he stars alongside Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep. The film tells the story of two soldiers wounded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and the repercussions back home.

Also screening will be Gavin Hood's "Rendition", which premiered at the Toronto festival. It stars Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal and is about an American trying to track down her Egyptian-born husband, who is held at a secret CIA detention centre.

The films are the latest in a string of Hollywood productions tackling the broad military fallout from the September 11 attacks, a theme that has made U.S. cinema popular at European festivals even if box office returns have been mixed.

"This is a great moment for American cinema and for Hollywood," said Piera Detassis, a Rome festival curator.

Among other U.S. titles screening in Rome is "Noise", casting Tim Robbins as a New Yorker who turns into a vigilante exasperated by car alarms going off in the middle of the night.

Sean Penn will also present his "Into the Wild", the true story of a 24-year-old on a road trip across America and into the Alaskan wilderness that ultimately cost him his life.