Portobello trailer hints at Enzo Tortora’s rags to riches story on Marco Bellocchio’s HBO Max series

Portobello dropped its first trailer and set up Enzo Tortora’s rise, collapse, and fight to clear his name: glittering studio lights, handcuffs outside a Roman station, and the long grind of the courts. This marks Marco Bellocchio’s debut for HBO Max and the platform’s first scripted original from Italy, with Fabrizio Gifuni as Enzo Tortora.

The rollout is festival-first: Portobello (Episodes 1–2) plays out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, ahead of a 2026 streaming launch.

Early materials lean on one stark image: Tortora’s wrists raised in chains, while fast cuts nod to the TV ritual that made Portobello a national fixture. The frame signals an institutional story as much as a biographical one: television, the judiciary, politics, and a public that watched it unfold.

Portobello trailer teaser breakdown: scene by scene

The Portobello teaser opens on a studio montage, phone banks, a bustling switchboard, and the green parrot mascot. Subjects in these sequences all utter one name repeatedly,

"Porto bello, porto bello, porto bello."

Then it takes a hard pivot to June 17, 1983: Tortora in handcuffs outside a Roman police station as flashes pop and microphones crowd the frame.

The cut pattern alternates between public spectacle and private impact: a corridor walk under press pressure, marble steps and court interiors, and close domestic beats that underline strain. It then returns to lights and applause, blending studio reflections with colder institutional rooms, and ends on raised wrists, a Venice card, and the 2026 slate for Portobello.

Portobello at Venice, and when it streams

Portobello (Ep. 1-2) premieres out of competition at La Biennale di Venezia on September 1, 2025. For release, HBO Max/Max lists 2026 and positions Portobello as its first Italian scripted original. As per Warner Bros. Discovery Pressroom note dated February 22, 2025, the logline states,

“The six-episode series tells the story of Enzo Tortora, the famous host of the real-life television show “Portobello” – which aired in 1977 for seven seasons – who was accused by justice collaborators of being part of a criminal organization involved in drug trafficking. Tortora was imprisoned and tried for years before being definitively acquitted of all charges.”

Portobello credits: creator/director Marco Bellocchio, writers Bellocchio, Stefano Bises, Giordana Mari, Peppe Fiore, lead Fabrizio Gifuni as Enzo Tortora, producers/partners Our Films (Mediawan), Kavac Film, ARTE France, Rai Fiction, The Apartment Pictures.

Enzo Tortora: TV phenomenon, wrongful arrest, and vindication

Before the case, Portobello was a mass-audience variety show built around live call-ins and a parrot mascot that viewers tried to make speak on air. The format turned Tortora into weekend appointment TV. In 1983, Tortora was arrested and later fully acquitted on appeal in 1986, a timeline the series compresses into a clear arc for Portobello.

As per the Cineuropa report dated September 26, 2024, Director Marco Bellocchio stated,

“Tortora suffered a great injustice: he was arrested, tried and sentenced, and only totally cleared after a long legal odyssey. He was a fighter, but the fight made him ill and ultimately took his life. I won’t turn him into a saint, I’ll dig deep down into this man’s story in a series, because a film couldn’t contain it.”

Before the case, Portobello was a straight-up climb story. Enzo Tortora started in radio at RAI, moved through early TV gigs, and learned live formats the hard way.

He was fired in 1969 after criticizing the management, then spent years hustling across private stations and newspapers. That setback became a pivot. In 1977, he returned to RAI with Portobello and turned a call-in marketplace into national primetime.

Audience figures reached into the tens of millions, making Portobello a weekly ritual and Tortora a household name. This rise-and-reset is the show’s human center. A presenter who built Portobello from phone calls and ordinary needs became the face of a very public mistake.

Stay tuned for more updates.