Will Mauricette began working on his short film Spare Me in the summer of 2022, just before his junior year at Ringling College of Art and Design. It has since been selected for entry to more than 20 film festivals and earned a number of awards—including 2024 Best Picture from the Mometu College Shorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Mometu, a streaming service specializing in independent and international titles, subsequently awarded funding to adapt Spare Me into a full-length film.
Set in Sarasota in 1931, Spare Me depicts a father and son dealing with a flat tire in the midst of what was then a sundown town—an all-white municipality in which Black people were unwelcome or expressly forbidden (and often met with violence) after dark. The story was inspired, in part, by a photo of Mauricette and his father working on a car.
Filmed in November 2022, the eight-minute film was originally made on a budget of $700, utilizing favors from Myakka’s Strickland Ranch and the West Coast Black Theatre Troupe, among others.
Since the Mometu festival in June, Mauricette has been working on the full-length screenplay. He hopes to shoot in November, but if delays push the schedule back to December/January, then he plans to take advantage of the winter break to hire current Ringling Film students.
“I don't take it for granted,” he said of his first feature opportunity. “I was very nervous and scared about graduation because the question in my head all day every day was ‘What's next?’”
But the success of this project has provided confidence and motivation. “I'm very excited, driven, and determined to make the best out of the opportunity while working and helping as many of my classmates I went to school with,” he said, “and while collaborating with new people.”
The original Spare Me will next be screened at the prestigious Micheaux Film Festival in Los Angeles this October, alongside Mauricette’s senior thesis film, Curtain Call.
Ringling College of Art and Design www.ringling.edu