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Closed Captions Icon  Showing with captioning. The intro and Q&A on May 3 will include ASL interpretation.

Industry Passholder tickets are available online starting at 9:00 pm the night prior to the screening date, and up until one hour before the screening time. Passholders can also obtain tickets in person at the screening venue's box office on the day of the screening upon presentation of their pass. Venue box offices open one hour prior to the venue's first screening of the day.

If you touched a keyboard in the 1980s, you may very well be familiar with the face and legacy of Mavis Beacon: an unsung hero of Black history who taught a generation of kids to type. Determined to preserve a piece of tech history, the filmmakers head on a quest to find Renée L’Espérance — the Haitian woman who portrayed the in-game typing instructor. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that L’Espérance occupies a special place in the collective cultural memory: Was she real, or just a projection of a desire to connect with an emerging tech culture that shut out minority voices? This unpredictable hybrid doc experience deploys cutting-edge cinematic language and a unique brand of investigative journalism to drive its neo-noir feel, as it integrates interviews and archival internet videos to understand the space Renée L’Espérance represents. Buoyed by friendship and rooted to their intuition, the investigators utilize ancestral rituals of healing, transformative justice frameworks, and community support to seek resolution.

Distributor: Neon

Credits

  • Director(s)

    • Jazmin Jones
  • Producer(s)

    • Guetty Felin
  • Executive Producer(s)

    • Tom Quinn
    • Dan O'Meara
    • Kate Gondwe
    • Charlotte Cook
  • Editor(s)

    • Jon Fine
    • Jazmin Jones
    • Yeelen Cohen
  • Cinematography

    • Yeelen Cohen
  • Composer

    • Guetty Felin
  • Sound

    • Joakim Cohen
  • Visit the film's website

Promotional Partners

May 3 screening sponsored by

Jolera

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