Speaking with Argentine broadcaster Todo Noticias, Coppola appealed to the bandits to return the small computer backup device, which was taken along with computers in the raid Wednesday night. "They stole our computers; they got all our data, many years of work," said Coppola, who apparently was not in the studio at the time of the robbery.

The director of "The Godfather" said the backup that rested on the floor in his offices at the Zoetrope Argentina studio was just "a little thing ... but the information is (worth) much time." "If I could get the backup back, it would save me years - all the photographs of my family, all my writing." Coppola said the robbery would not prompt him to leave Argentina, where he plans to shoot a feature film: "Argentine people are very nice." Nonetheless, he said he was thinking of relocating his studio from the chic Palermo neighborhood to a Buenos Aires district where he felt safer.

Four robbers, at least one brandishing a knife, broke through a front door, tied up four employees and took four computers, cell phones and other valuables, apparently picking the studio at random, the newspaper Clarin reported, citing unnamed police sources.