Image Descriptions:

On two square graphics with pale blue backgrounds are two images. The first is a rectangular image of a gallery wall in deep red light, overlaid with the text “Please Hold, A Video by Alexandra Juhasz.” The second is a grid showing four people. Clockwise from top-left: the side view of a person looking downward near a street full of parked cars. Next, a person staring into a camera, wearing a green collared shirt. Beneath, someone sitting in front of rows of books with their arm making a gesture of some kind. Lastly, someone lying in a hospital bed, looking away from the camera. Overlaid is the following text: “That’s where the political analysis is.”

The two square graphics include all of the following details: “POSITIVE EXPOSURE GALLERY. Please Hold, 70 mins, 2024 by Alexandra Juhasz. Friends and Family Screening. Sunday, April 21, 3-5pm. Please join us for a sneak preview of a just-finished experimental documentary, Please Hold, featuring Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski and members of her family, including her husband Henry Szczepanski, daughter Jahanara Zzaman King, and granddaughter Pharah Diaz.

The tape asks: What does it mean to hold the legacy of beloveds on changing formats of memory? How do mourning, haunting, and memory change across time? How have AIDS and AIDS activism changed since the dawn of this ongoing pandemic? Alex and Juanita met in 1990 to make the celebrated collective AIDS activist video, We Care: A Video for Care Providers of People Affected by AIDS, and went on to collaborate for decades on many activist media projects, including this one.

Alexandra Juhasz, Juanita’s family members, and others will be present to discuss this haunting, sometimes sad, and often hopeful personal documentary about how we collaborate with fellow activists in life and also in death.

The film screening will be held alongside an exhibit of Henry’s work as a photographer and writer, as well as the work of his wife, Juanita, who was a filmmaker and an AIDS activist.

Alexandra Juhasz is a Distinguished Professor of Film at Brooklyn College, CUNY and a lifelong AIDS activist. Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski (1957-2022) was a prolific activist videomaker whose work focused on AIDS, disability, racism, and gender.”