Best Denver Film Festival Guest

Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia (the Oscar-winning writer/director of Lost in Translation), gets most of the attention these days, but the man who created the Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation was as thoughtful, congenial and engaging as any Denver International Film Festival honoree in recent memory when he appeared briefly at DIFF in October. The bearded bear who helped transform American movies in the 1970s was courtly and unstintingly informative with reporters, confessing to one, "There's no place for me anymore in the film industry." He gave himself wholeheartedly to festival-goers as he discussed everything from the wine business to the re-release of his strange Las Vegas musical, One From the Heart(1982). For newly elected Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, Coppola was a pure thrill: "My best day in office so far," Hick cracked at the buffet table.