Walk in paradise, 2002

35mm. film, 12'

featuring franca maresa and leo pantaleo

photography antonio costa

editing anna romanzi

written and directed by stefania galegati

Andrea Bellini on Stefania Galegati in Teufel # 1, New York, 2004

The video Passeggiata in paradiso (2002), a work dedicated to the memory and resistance of partisans against Nazi-Fascism, refers instead to a more precise historical dimension. Edda, a former partisan, sees a televised interview with Garibaldi, a mythical resistance figure, which starts her reminiscing about her past actions during world War II. The memories of that period fifty years ago prompt her to set out in search of Garibaldi. The two meet, now old. They dance together and then make love without ever exchanging a single word. As two nude bodies they escape the dimensions of myth and the hagiographic thread of thousands of resistance tales to become real, present and alive. History as a subjective tale, lived by men and women of flesh and bone, is the poetic history of individuals who age and not of abstract figures, it is the tragic and at the same time sublime affair that signals the passing of youth but perhaps also the persistence of the dream’s energy and life’s intensity.