Seeking Mavis Beacon.From its very first scenes, Seeking Mavis Beacon (2024) invites audiences to interrogate their perceptions of reality. A dreamy hybrid documentary steeped in jewel-toned Tumblr aesthetics, the feature debut from Bay Area–raised artist and filmmaker Jazmin Jones unfolds as an investigation into the curious case of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, an educational software program that rose to popularity just as the internet was beginning to pervade in everyday life. Launched in 1987 by a trio of Silicon Valley developers, Mavis Beacon would go on to coach millions into a more comfortable relationship with technology. Over the years, the game’s early cover-art model, a Haitian expat named Renee L’Esperance, became a familiar face in households across the US and a rare Black icon in the (still) overwhelmingly white world of tech.Despite the ubiquity of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, little was known about its namesake—including the...
- 4/9/2024
- MUBI
Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” has tapped the producers of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Jon Read and Allison Rose Carter, to lead their growing production arm. Read and Carter are the co-founders of Savage Rose Films.
The pact comes as Neon has moved more aggressively into developing and producing its own movies, instead of focusing purely on acquiring completed films. The company’s recent foray into production have included Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool,” Bishal Dutta’s “It Lives Inside,” Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions,” Jazmin Jones’s “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo.” This new in-house focus also includes upcoming projects from Joshua Oppenheimer, Boots Riley and David Robert Mitchell. Under the terms of the deal, Neon will have a first-look at Savage Rose Films’ roster of projects while Read and Carter will also run Neon’s productions, reporting to Jeff Deutchman,...
The pact comes as Neon has moved more aggressively into developing and producing its own movies, instead of focusing purely on acquiring completed films. The company’s recent foray into production have included Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool,” Bishal Dutta’s “It Lives Inside,” Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions,” Jazmin Jones’s “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo.” This new in-house focus also includes upcoming projects from Joshua Oppenheimer, Boots Riley and David Robert Mitchell. Under the terms of the deal, Neon will have a first-look at Savage Rose Films’ roster of projects while Read and Carter will also run Neon’s productions, reporting to Jeff Deutchman,...
- 3/26/2024
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Mavis Beacon is the proud, kind, capable Black woman who’s the face of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, the typing program that ushered so many people into the digital age. The way director Jazmin Jones sees it, Mavis Beacon belongs on any list of the most important Black women in modern history, and her reasoning is sound. Indeed, one of the successes of Seeking Mavis Beacon is its emphasis on just how many people would never have found a foothold in the 21st century if not for Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. That feels like enough to qualify Mavis Beacon for many an honorific. That is, if the woman were actually real.
Turns out, Mavis Beacon is a mascot character crafted by the three men who developed the typing program. The model for Mavis is a very real Haitian immigrant named Renée L’Espérance, who was paid $500 for her likeness before falling off the grid.
Turns out, Mavis Beacon is a mascot character crafted by the three men who developed the typing program. The model for Mavis is a very real Haitian immigrant named Renée L’Espérance, who was paid $500 for her likeness before falling off the grid.
- 1/30/2024
- by Justin Clark
- Slant Magazine
In her debut feature, Jazmin Jones and collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross are looking for answers. They turn to the divine, the public, and, of course, the Internet for guidance. Their holy grail is Mavis Beacon, the virtual instructor who led one of the most popular learning games of all time. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is a font of nostalgia for those who played it in its heyday, and Black fans like Jones saw Mavis as an especially important pioneer for their digital representation.
Seeking Mavis Beacon is a more artistic and conceptual film than investigative, though Jones and Ross uncover some intriguing context about Renée L’Espérance, the model who first portrayed Beacon. As the game’s first face––and thus the blueprint for Mavis, who was henceforth a Black, female character––L’Espérance played a key role in the birth of the blockbuster game. But what does it mean...
Seeking Mavis Beacon is a more artistic and conceptual film than investigative, though Jones and Ross uncover some intriguing context about Renée L’Espérance, the model who first portrayed Beacon. As the game’s first face––and thus the blueprint for Mavis, who was henceforth a Black, female character––L’Espérance played a key role in the birth of the blockbuster game. But what does it mean...
- 1/30/2024
- by Lena Wilson
- The Film Stage
If you came of age during the height of computer typing programs, the name Mavis Beacon will conjure the image of a pixelated Black woman with a honeyed voice. You might remember her introduction, delivered in a dulcet tone: “Welcome to typing class, I’m your teacher Mavis Beacon.” She was an encouraging presence in the ’80s, reminding you that, with Mavis on your side, you could do anything — especially learn to type.
But who was Mavis Beacon? Is the person who helped acclimate generations to a requirement of the computer age real? In Seeking Mavis Beacon, a frenzied and enlightening documentary, filmmaker Jazmin Jones embarks on a Searching for Sugarman-style quest to find the actual Mavis Beacon. She’s joined by her associate producer and friend, Olivia McKayla Ross, a young woman whose shifting relationship to the internet becomes a key plot point. Together, Jones and Ross dig into web archives,...
But who was Mavis Beacon? Is the person who helped acclimate generations to a requirement of the computer age real? In Seeking Mavis Beacon, a frenzied and enlightening documentary, filmmaker Jazmin Jones embarks on a Searching for Sugarman-style quest to find the actual Mavis Beacon. She’s joined by her associate producer and friend, Olivia McKayla Ross, a young woman whose shifting relationship to the internet becomes a key plot point. Together, Jones and Ross dig into web archives,...
- 1/23/2024
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mavis Beacon taught the world to type.
Starting in the late 1980s, a software program featuring the eponymous instructor drilled computer users on their keyboard skills, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. But it often comes as a shock to find out that Beacon never really existed. A triumph of the advertisers’ art, the typing teacher was an entirely fictional creation. And the image of Beacon that resonates most deeply, the photo of a Black woman in business attire that appears on the packaging, actually belongs to Renee L’Esperance, a Haitian model who was paid a measly $500 for her work and didn’t get to share in any royalties from the game’s success (she’d later sue when her image was altered on subsequent editions).
Decades after the program debuted, Beacon’s outsized influence is being reexamined in “Seeking Mavis Beacon,” a documentary that premiered last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival.
Starting in the late 1980s, a software program featuring the eponymous instructor drilled computer users on their keyboard skills, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. But it often comes as a shock to find out that Beacon never really existed. A triumph of the advertisers’ art, the typing teacher was an entirely fictional creation. And the image of Beacon that resonates most deeply, the photo of a Black woman in business attire that appears on the packaging, actually belongs to Renee L’Esperance, a Haitian model who was paid a measly $500 for her work and didn’t get to share in any royalties from the game’s success (she’d later sue when her image was altered on subsequent editions).
Decades after the program debuted, Beacon’s outsized influence is being reexamined in “Seeking Mavis Beacon,” a documentary that premiered last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival.
- 1/22/2024
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Exuberantly maximalist in approach, Jazmin Jones’s blast of a debut feature, Seeking Mavis Beacon, is a rapid-fire blend of neo-noir road movie, desktop essay film and meta critique of the “searching for” documentary subgenre. The picture follows Jones and cyber doula friend Olivia McKayla Ross — self-described “e-girl detectives” — on their years-long journey to locate Renee L’Espérance, the Haitian-born model whose face in 1987 adorned the software packaging for the typing instructional program “Mavis Beacon Learns to Type.” As the program sold in the millions, the character of Mavis Beacon, who many believed was a real person, became an […]
The post “Let’s Talk about Glitch Feminism, and What is a Cyber Doula?”: Jazmin Jones on Her Expansive Sundance-Premiering Doc, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Let’s Talk about Glitch Feminism, and What is a Cyber Doula?”: Jazmin Jones on Her Expansive Sundance-Premiering Doc, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/21/2024
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Exuberantly maximalist in approach, Jazmin Jones’s blast of a debut feature, Seeking Mavis Beacon, is a rapid-fire blend of neo-noir road movie, desktop essay film and meta critique of the “searching for” documentary subgenre. The picture follows Jones and cyber doula friend Olivia McKayla Ross — self-described “e-girl detectives” — on their years-long journey to locate Renee L’Espérance, the Haitian-born model whose face in 1987 adorned the software packaging for the typing instructional program “Mavis Beacon Learns to Type.” As the program sold in the millions, the character of Mavis Beacon, who many believed was a real person, became an […]
The post “Let’s Talk about Glitch Feminism, and What is a Cyber Doula?”: Jazmin Jones on Her Expansive Sundance-Premiering Doc, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Let’s Talk about Glitch Feminism, and What is a Cyber Doula?”: Jazmin Jones on Her Expansive Sundance-Premiering Doc, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/21/2024
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
“I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Given the investigative nature of Seeking Mavis Beacon, I knew I wanted to play with elements of noir and true crime. It’s worth mentioning that I have a contentious relationship with these film genres but, aesthetically speaking, they’re rife with visual motifs that […]
The post “I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2024
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
“I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Given the investigative nature of Seeking Mavis Beacon, I knew I wanted to play with elements of noir and true crime. It’s worth mentioning that I have a contentious relationship with these film genres but, aesthetically speaking, they’re rife with visual motifs that […]
The post “I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Attribute Our Ingenuity to Collective Organizing Principles” | Jazmin Jones, Seeking Mavis Beacon first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2024
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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