Lights Camera Roma cover
Coming July 1, 2026

Lights, Camera, Roma

Love and Power in Italy’s Greatest Film Dynasty

Mad Men meets Roman Holiday — with a suitcase full of cash and something about to go wrong.

Jack Durgin is twenty-six, carrying $120,000 in cash, and producing a Coca-Cola commercial outside Rome. The job is supposed to be simple: a sixty-second spot at a train crossing, big budget, then home.

A young American producer arriving at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in 1981
Leonardo da Vinci Airport, 1981 — the job begins before Rome is awake.

Then Valentina walks into the casting session. She rides a dented Fiat through Rome’s back streets, cooks dinner on a rooftop in Parioli, drives him to Viterbo like nothing can touch them — and she happens to be the secret heir to one of Italy’s most powerful families.

Set in Rome in 1981, Lights, Camera, Roma is a story of desire, power, and what it costs to choose love inside a system designed to prevent it.

A private rooftop dinner in Rome
A private rooftop dinner in Rome — he is inside the moment; she is already somewhere else.

Written by the producer who carried the cash.

Coming soon