Director Marco Bellocchio has explained his motivation for creating ‘Portobello,’ a new six-part HBO Original series about the infamous Enzo Tortora case. Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, Bellocchio stated he was initially drawn to the late television host precisely because he was not a hero, but an ordinary man with whom he shared little, not even an aesthetic sensibility.
“He was also a well-read man, but his declared liberalism made him completely foreign to me,” Bellocchio recounted. “We were ideologically committed in other directions and we looked at him with a certain detachment, wondering, ‘who does this Anglophile intellectual think he is?'”
The director’s perspective shifted dramatically following Tortora’s wrongful imprisonment. “Suddenly,” Bellocchio continued, “when Tortora was put behind bars, despite being completely innocent, I wanted to tell his story as a representation of an injustice that was perpetrated for far too long.”
The series, which was presented out of competition at the Lido and will be ready for the new streaming platform HBO Max in March, stars Fabrizio Gifuni as Enzo Tortora. The cast also includes Lino Musella, Barbora Bobulova, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Davide Mancini, Federica Fracassi, Carlotta Gamba, Giada Fortini, Massimiliano Rossi, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Alessio Praticò, Gianfranco Gallo (as Raffaele Cutolo), and features Alessandro Preziosi.
‘Portobello’ was written by Marco Bellocchio, Stefano Bises, Giordana Mari, and Peppe Fiore.