In Italian we have a term, “tormentone” – one-hit-wonder. We use it for a big Summer hit, a song, usually a dance one, that everybody sings. This type of song is so popular that it starts “tormenting” you, hence the name. Singers tend to get only one of those, and then it’s hard to repeat the same success.  My tormentone is Venus Transit, my thesis script that was awarded a Sloan Filmmaker Fund Grant from the Tribeca Film Institute. Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal made the announcement – the most exciting moment in my career. This happened right after getting a Sloan grant also from my alma mater, USC. At Tribeca I won alongside The Imitation Game, which ended up earning an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. I hope I will get even just an ounce of that movie’s success, but at the same time, who knows? Maybe Venus Transit is just a catchy song and the real tormentone is still yet to come, or even better, I will have many films/tv series that I will be proud of.