From a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last September to screenings in Toronto and London, HBO has sought to put Portobello, its first Italian original series, on a global stage.

Now, following the show’s launch on HBO Max in February – the streamer arrived in the UK and Ireland last month, completing its roll-out in Europe – viewers can watch all six episodes of this true crime drama.

“We’re all very happy,” star Fabrizio Gifuni tells DQ. “The reaction, the appreciation for the film, has been significant since the Venice Film Festival, where we showed only the first two episodes, and then after the release in Italy on HBO.

“But I have to say, the feedback we also got from other countries has been very comforting, very reassuring. It really took us aback and surprised us that, even in foreign countries, a story that is so Italian aroused a lot of curiosity and appreciation.”

Gifuni plays TV host Enzo Tortora, who was the king of Italian TV in the late 1970s and early 80s, with 28 million people tuning in to watch his primetime entertainment series Portobello. The story unfolds after the Irpinia earthquake – which killed almost 2,500 people in Southern Italy in 1980 – delivers the final blow to the fragile balance within the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, an organised crime group. Giovanni Pandico, a trusted associate of boss Raffaele Cutolo and an avid Portobello viewer from his prison cell, decides to turn state witness. While being questioned, he gives an unexpected name: Enzo Tortora.

When, on June 17, 1983, the police knock on his hotel room door, Tortora thinks it must be a mistake. But it is only the beginning of an ordeal that will drag him from the heights of fame to the depths of ruin.

Produced by Our Films and Kavac Film in coproduction with Arte France, Rai Fiction and The Apartment Pictures, the series stars Gifuni alongside Lino Musella, Barbora Bobulova, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Federica Fracassi, Carlotta Gamba and more.

It marks the fifth collaboration between Gifuni and Portobello writer-director Marco Bellocchio, following Fai bei sogni (Sweet Dreams), Esterno notte (Exterior Night), Rapito (Kidnapped) and short film Se posso permettermi: Capitolo II.

Here, they both tell DQ about their interest in bringing Tortora’s story to the small screen, how Gifuni became Tortora and Bellocchio’s first time working with digital effects.

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