TV series are a powerful contemporary language. Through them I see how a society tells its story, how it evolves, which values it chooses to portray
Interview with Francesca Gallello Gabriel Italo Nel Gómez
By Angela Kosta
In recent years, while the Western world was discovering the universe of K dramas and Asian productions, a distinctive voice emerged in Italy—capable of narrating this phenomenon with depth, method, and literary sensitivity. Not a fan, not an occasional viewer, but a critic who chose to study the East through the contemporary language of television series, recognizing their cultural, aesthetic, and social value.
This interview explores her journey, her methodology, and the reason why Asian series today represent one of the most fascinating languages for understanding a world in transformation.
Francesca Gallello Gabriel Italo Nel Gómez is an Italian novelist, poet, screenwriter, journalist, and literary critic. She has dedicated more than forty years to writing, publishing novels, essays, poetry collections in Italian and in dialect, as well as historical novels and experimental works. She is the creator of the first virtual novel Virtual Romance, founder of the publishing house Veliero— the first woman in Calabria to direct an editorial enterprise— and editor in chief of Saturno Magazine, an international literary magazine that has surpassed 700,000 unique visits. Alongside her writing career, Francesca created the artisanal jewelry brand LEPPOLLINA – Piccole Gioie, recognized for its originality and artistic value. For this, the Tiberina Academy of Rome awarded her the title of Maestro Accademico. She has collaborated with international authors and magazines, bringing her voice to more than eleven countries. In 2024 she was included in the International Book of Poets for World Peace and named Ambassador for Peace. In 2025 she represents Italy in Bangladesh and joins the International Advisory Council of the Academy of Farsala in Greece. Always attentive to contemporary narrative languages, she has introduced the study of Asian TV series into her critical work, analyzing them with literary and cinematic methodology.
Francesca, for decades you have been known as a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and literary critic. Yet in recent years you have opened a new chapter: the critique of Korean and Asian TV series. How did this choice begin?
Francesca G: It began with my lifelong profession: observing, studying, and narrating. I don’t follow Asian series because they are fashionable. I follow them because, as a writer, I find in them an extraordinarily rich narrative terrain. Direction, scenography, screenplay, symbolism, acting—everything speaks. And through all of this, the culture of a people speaks as well, a people that has fascinated me since childhood.
I have always loved the stories of distant countries. Asian series captivate me because they show the fragility and strength of a people, the delicacy that becomes romanticism, the elegance of gestures, the imagination that is not artifice but tradition. They are open windows onto a world revealed through details.
Many ask why you study the East specifically through TV series. What do you answer?
Francesca G: I answer that TV series are a powerful contemporary language. Through them I see how a society tells its story, how it evolves, which values it chooses to portray. In small gestures, measured words, silences, daily rituals—an entire culture reveals itself.
In recent years I have observed a significant evolution in the representation of women: no longer a decorative figure, but a narrative, professional, and emotional force. It is a cultural shift that also passes through fiction, and one that deserves serious analysis.
Do you consider yourself the first Italian critic specialized in this field?
Francesca. G: I would never call myself “the first.” I don’t know whether in Italy or elsewhere a structured, continuous criticism dedicated to Asian series exists. What I do know is that I approach this work not sporadically, but as part of my profession as a writer, screenwriter, and literary critic.
I analyze these works as complex texts: writing, cinematography, symbolism, acting, social impact. And I study how these series influence not only Asian society but the global one.
So it’s not just entertainment.
Francesca. G: Absolutely not. Asian series are changing the way the world perceives the East. They bring new themes: women’s emancipation, male vulnerability, work ethics, respect, spirituality, memory. And they reach millions of viewers.
This is a cultural phenomenon, not a trend. And it deserves criticism capable of reading it, interpreting it, narrating it.
What does this work represent for you?
Francesca. G: It represents a bridge. A bridge between cultures, between languages, between sensitivities. And it also represents a responsibility: narrating the East without stereotypes, with respect, with love for storytelling and for art.
Every series is a journey. And every journey is a way to know ourselves better.
Your favorite director?
Francesca. G: I don’t have just one. I love several directors’ film, each for a different reason, and each for a wound or a beauty they have been able to portray. Bong Joon – ho
I love Bong Joon ho for his ability to unite the social with the intimate. In Memories of Murder he doesn’t just tell an investigation: he tells the fragility of the human being before the unknown. Every detail is a psychological threshold.
Park Chan wook
Park Chan wook is an architect of emotion. In The Handmaiden sensuality is a breath, a shadow, a gesture that grazes. His direction is embroidery made of tension and poetry.
Kim Ki duk
Kim Ki duk, in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring, transported me into the silence I love. His art does not speak: it breathes. Every image is a meditation on pain and rebirth.
Lee Eung bok
Lee Eung bok is the director who has surprised me the most with his delicacy, especially in Mr. Sunshine.
And here I want to pause. Among all the works I have seen, few scenes have struck me like the candy scene in Mr. Sunshine. It is not a scene between the two protagonists, but between the protagonist Kim Tae ri and one of her rivals, Yoo Yeon seok.
He is on the balcony. He sees her savoring a candy. A tiny gesture, every day, almost childlike.
Yet in that gesture, the director builds one of the most intimate and powerful scenes of the entire series. He goes downstairs. Approaches the vendor. Buys a bag of candies. Tastes one.
And in that instant—without a kiss, without a touch, without a word—something enormous happens: seduction becomes gaze, restrained desire, sweet pain, passion that does not dare to declare itself.
In that scene I saw:
The delicacy of feelings
The strength of unspoken love
The fragility of a man who loves in silence
The poetry of a gesture that becomes destiny
The mastery of a director who turns a candy into an emotional earthquake
It is a scene that needs no physical contact because it is already skin, breath, soul.
This is the art I love. This is why I do criticism. Because I want to narrate what happens between the images, behind the words, inside the characters.
Which series are you watching at the moment?
Right now I am watching “Non star a guardare – Don’t just stand there” a series that addresses a painful and necessary theme: domestic violence. The story follows a woman who has endured abuse for years and finally finds a lifeline, a possibility of salvation, thanks to the help of a friend.
This series moves me because it does not sensationalize pain: it narrates it with respect, with truth, with that delicacy that allows the viewer to enter the story without voyeurism. It is a narrative that speaks of courage, female solidarity, silent resistance. And it confirms once again how Asian series know how to address profound social themes with a sensitivity I rarely find elsewhere.
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Angela Kosta is Executive Director of the Magazines: MIRIADE, NUANCES ON THE PANORAMIC CANVAS, BRIDGES OF LITERATURE, journalist, poet, essayist, publisher, literary critic, editor, translator, promoter
