At a glance
- From: Italy, with ARTE France as co-producer
- Year: 2025 (Venice Film Festival), on streaming since February 2026
- Format: 6 episodes
- Language: Italian, with subtitles
- For fans of: The People v. O. J. Simpson, When They See Us
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, more than 25 million Italians watched the same programme on Friday nights. It was called Portobello. Viewers phoned in to sell things, present an invention or look for a partner. The show’s mascot was a green parrot, also called Portobello, and one of the challenges was to make it say its own name.
The host was Enzo Tortora, one of the most popular faces on Italian television. At four in the morning on 17 June 1983, the Carabinieri arrested him in Rome, and the press photographed him in handcuffs. The charges: belonging to the Camorra, the mafia of Naples, and dealing cocaine. The accusations came from former Camorra members who had become state witnesses.
Tortora was innocent. In 1985 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1986 a court of appeal in Naples cleared him, and in 1987 Italy’s highest court confirmed it. On 20 February 1987 he returned to his show, and his first words became famous: “Dunque, dove eravamo rimasti?”, “So, where were we?”. He died in May 1988, at 59.
Marco Bellocchio, born in 1939 and one of the great names of Italian cinema, tells this story in six episodes, with Fabrizio Gifuni as Tortora. The first two episodes premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2025, and it is the first Italian original series made for HBO Max.
Where to start
Start with the first episode, “28 milioni di spettatori” (“28 million viewers”). Its title tells you where the story begins: at the very top.
If you like this, try these from Europe
- Esterno notte (Exterior Night) 🇮🇹 (2022): Bellocchio’s earlier series about the kidnapping of the politician Aldo Moro in 1978. Free on RaiPlay, with ads.
- The Investigation (Efterforskningen) 🇩🇰 (2020): Tobias Lindholm’s series about the police investigation into the murder of the journalist Kim Wall in 2017. Free on arte.tv.
- Engrenages (Spiral) 🇫🇷 (2005): the French series that shows the justice system from the inside, with police, judges and lawyers in Paris.
Where to find it in Europe
- Free on ARTE: from 8 October until 7 April 2027, all six episodes are on arte.tv in France and in Germany (as Portobello: Unschuldig verurteilt). ARTE, the co-producer, also shows them on TV on 15 and 22 October.
- In Spain: on Movistar Plus+.
- In Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg: it is not on HBO Max, because ARTE holds the rights there. Open the arte.tv page to see if you can watch it from your country.
- In most other European countries: on HBO Max, for whom it was the first Italian original series.
The European context
In Italy, the Tortora case is still remembered as one of the country’s most famous judicial errors. In 1984, while he was still waiting for his trial, Tortora was elected to the European Parliament for the Radical Party. Forty years later, the questions of the series are European questions too: who protects the innocent when everybody has already decided?
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/_DdXTMondyU
Also on Choosing Europe
- Series: Die Kaiserin (The Empress) 🇩🇪: another European series about a famous figure and the public image around her.
- Series: The Man Who Played with Fire 🇸🇪: another true crime story that shook a whole country.
