Interview: Alexandra Juhasz on Please Hold for Film Comment’s “The Letter”
In her searingly personal new experimental documentary Please Hold, Juhasz—serving as camera operator as well as diegetic narrator—continually returns to a perambulatory circuit: the walk from Manhattan’s Delancey Street/Essex Street subway platform to the Parkside Lounge, the storied queer bar on East Houston Street. Throughout this commute, Juhasz’s memories of living on Houston and Attorney Street—right next to the Parkside Lounge—in the late 1980s come back to her, specifically her time with her roommate and best friend James Robert Lamb, who died of AIDS-related illness in 1993. She guides the viewer through these memories in real time, recalling the “roving party of friends and strangers and loved ones” who cohabitated with her and Lamb, their entrance into the AIDS activist community, and the parties they attended at the Parkside. These memories spark discussions that are interspersed with the footage of Juhasz’s recursive stroll, including video conversations and remembrances between Juhasz and fellow AIDS workers Ted Kerr, Ji-Feh Cheng, Marty Fink, and Pato Hebert. –Mackenzie Lukenbill
Published in The Letter, Film Comment, 2025
By Mackenzie Lukenbill
Topics: Activist Media | AIDS | Anti-Racist Media | COVID-19 & Disability Justice | Experimental Film | Film & Video Projects | Interviews | Recent Work (2024-25) | Video | Women & HIV/AIDS |