Seeking Mavis Beacon

directed by Jazmin Jones, produced by Guetty Felin

Who was Mavis Beacon, the eponymous software course that taught millions of people to type in the ‘80s? Seeking Mavis Beacon is a hybrid documentary blending myth and memory to uncover the story of Mavis Beacon. We follow director Jazmin Jones and co-collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross as “e-girl detectives” in search of Renee L’Esperance, the Haitian woman who modeled as the in-game typing instructor in 1987. “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” sold 10 million copies worldwide and L’Esperance became the face of the educational software.  Though Mavis Beacon became a household name for millennials, Renee was paid $500 for the use of her image and would soon fade into obscurity. The film highlights ethical questions about representation and education while investigating, “What ever happened to Mavis Beacon?”

Jazmin Jones is a Brooklyn Based, Bay Area raised Visual Storyteller and Thot Leader with BUFU: By Us For Us. Her aim is to build platforms for more vibrant and nuanced representation of the marginalized communities she’s a part of. Working across visual mediums, her projects often echo personal experiences as a Queer, Black femme attempting to wage intimacy in the Post-Internet era.

 She's been granted the Human and Civil Rights Award from the National Association of Education, the Fair Use Award from the Media That Matters Film Festival, a Civic Arts and Humanities Fellowship with the Flaherty Film Seminar and was recently featured in SFMoMa's Raw Materials podcast. In 2015, Jazmin co-founded BUFU: a project-based collective interested in solidarity amongst Us, co-creating experimental models of organizing with You. The collective was awarded Eyebeam’s 2017 Trust Residency and are 2020 residents with the Brooklyn Community Foundation Incubator Project.