At 85, Marco Bellocchio reigns among Italy’s most revered filmmakers and in “Portobello,” the six-episode true crime series launching Friday as HBO Italy’s first original Italian-language drama series, he triumphs with a spectacular canvas.

Portobello was the green parrot and mascot for Italian TV’s most popular 1980’s weekly program, also named “Portobello.” An audience participation show, it drew 28 million viewers weekly because of its charming, modest host Enzo Tortora.

But on June 17, 1983 at 5 a.m. the Carabinieri arrested him in his hotel room, charging him with being a drug trafficker for, and a member of the Camorra – Italy’s notorious criminal organization.

As Bellocchio shows, overnight Tortora’s life became a living hell, one that would go on, in prisons and courts and in the tabloids, for years.

“I happened by chance to dive into the story, study it in depth,” Bellocchio said, speaking via an interpreter in Rome on a virtual interview.

“I was an adult when it became a sensational story. It couldn’t be just a motion picture, I needed six episodes.”

Tortora was imprisoned and prosecuted for years – without a shred of evidence. It echoes the infamous Amanda Knox case: an innocent American college student tried, jailed and finally freed.

“Judicial mistakes can occur in any judicial system, not just Italy. Enzo’s story is tragic,” Bellocchio conceded, “but really a tragic convergence of incidents led to his death.

“There was a note found in a Camorra member’s house with the name ‘Tortona’ written on it. Which was mistakenly taken for ‘Tortora.’

“There was this turncoat who ultimately dragged in other turncoats – I’m talking about Giovanni Pandico – who was encouraged to accuse Tortora for personal interests. It was simply hatred towards Enzo Tortora himself!

“Also bear in mind at the time a particular situation, especially in Naples: The deaths caused by the Camorra were really very frequent, about one a day.

“So the state was calling to respond to the situation. The judiciary then took this vast blitz where Enzo Tortora was just one of the 800 people arrested.

“But he was the Italian celebrity. Therefore, his arrest made the entire enquiry stronger. Besides being an injustice, as the celebrity he was dragged into the front page, the one who ultimately became the protagonist of the whole story, his picture on the front page every day.

“Even though there were hundreds of others arrested – drug pushers, murderers, criminals. So it was a combination of things that happened merely by chance.

“But there was a great deal of suffering. What he endured led to his death less than a year after he was cleared and proclaimed innocent.”

“Portobello” airs Friday on HBO