HBO Max Drops Trailer for First Italian Original Marco Bellocchio’s ‘Portobello’ as It Launches in Italy and Other Key European Markets (EXCLUSIVE)

HBO Max launches today in Italy with several Italian originals to follow soon, the standout one being Marco Bellocchio’s limited series “Portobello” that reconstructs one of the country’s most clamorous travesties of justice.

The HBO Max streaming service is also launching today, Jan. 13, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

“Portobello” – to which Variety has been given exclusive trailer access – is the true story of popular Italian TV host Enzo Tortora who, among other programs, conducted a primetime game show by the same title that aired on Italian state broadcaster RAI for seven seasons starting in 1977. The six-episode  show is a vivid account of how Tortora, in 1985, went from being a top-rated TV star to being wrongly convicted of conspiring with the Neapolitan crime syndicate known as Camorra.

Tortora is played by frequent Bellocchio collaborator Fabrizio Gifuni who starred as former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in Bellocchio’s previous limited TV series “Exterior Night,” about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of the country’s leader by Red Brigades terrorists. 

“Portobello,” which premiered last September to positive reviews at the Venice Film Festival and travelled to Toronto and Busan, will be the first HBO Original Italian production to launch on the HBO Max streaming platform in Italy on Feb. 20.  

The series is produced by Mediawan-owned Our Films and Kavav Film, in co-production with
Arte France and in collaboration with RAI Fiction and The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company.
It is produced by Lorenzo Mieli and Mario Gianani for Our Films, and by Simone Gattoni for Kavac Film.

Bellocchio’s series is expected to be available in coming months on HBO Max globally, including the U.S., U.K., Latin America and Europe, excluding France and Germany.

Other standout HBO Max Italian originals in the pipeline include “In Utero” a series set in a Barcelona fertility clinic starring Sergio Castellitto (“Conclave”), directed by Maria Sole Tognazzi (“Petra”), and produced by ITV-owned Cattleya in association with Paramount Television International Studio. The lineup also includes previously announced docuseries “Gina Lollobrigida: Diva Contesa,” exposing the battle over the legacy of the cinema icon, and “Saman,” depicting the struggle of a young Pakistani woman who was murdered by her own family in Northern Italia for refusing an arranged marriage.

Watch the “Portobello” trailer here: