The home of Francis Ford Coppola was robbed over the weekend and the theft of his backup device has left him facing the loss of 15 years' worth of data.

The Oscar winning director suffered a break in at a studio in Argentina where he is working on a new film. The thieves stole computers, and crucially a back-up device that had been left on the premises.

"They stole our computers. They got all our data, many years of work," Coppola told the BBC.

"If I could get the back-up back, it would save me years [of] all the photographs of my family, all my writing."

Experts always suggest that back-up files are kept in a separate location to the data that they are used to store. In this way if one system is taken out the data will always be secure.

Coppola said that the drive contained family photographs, writings and the script to a new film he is shooting in South America. He has threatened to leave Argentina if the drive is not returned.