- September 11, 2024
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Wilderley Mauricette was surprised when he realized that no one around him knew what a “sundown town” was and what its implications were for the Black community.
“No professor knew what it was, no classmates knew what it was, nothing,” he recalled of the time he was a student at Ringling College of Art and Design.
As a result, the concept became part of the basis for his short film “Spare Me,” set in Sarasota, which he completed in 2023 as a junior student project.
The young filmmaker hopes an unexpected opportunity to turn the eight-minute short film into a feature-length production will bring more awareness to the subject matter.
After “Spare Me” screened at the Mometu College Short Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2024, it picked up awards for “Best Picture” and “Producer’s Pick,” and the festival decided to fund a full-length adaptation.
Mauricette had always sought out knowledge of Black history while growing up, a time during which he moved back and forth between Sarasota and Bradenton, where he currently resides.
“As a young Black man, I've always surrounded myself with people who knew the history, that would always teach me the history,” he said.
He aims to incorporate into the film what he’s learned — for instance, that Sarasota was once one of many “sundown towns,” across the country.
Sundown towns were towns where Black people present after sundown could face harassment, police incarceration and violence.
"The scarier part is that there are actually still sundown towns in existence today in 2024, and that’s just mind-boggling to me,” Mauricette said.
The subject worked its way into the idea for “Spare Me” in 2022, which focuses on a young Black man, Trey Compton, who experiences flashbacks to his past while stuck in Sarasota with a flat tire.
The film also draws on Mauricette's relationship with his father, Onac Mauricette, with whom he came to the United States from Haiti at 8 years old.
“We've always had a great relationship,” he said. “When we made the big move from Haiti to the U.S., it was just me and him.”
Over a year, the film has circulated through 20 film festivals, and brought the opportunity for a feature, his original goal, sooner than Mauricette expected.
“Most filmmakers have to graduate, go do internships for a couple of years, go work on set for a couple of years as a production assistant," he said.
As a microbudget film costing less than $1 million, the film has an allotted runtime of an hour and a half.
As he writes the 90-page script, Mauricette hopes to incorporate history he did not have the chance to explore in the original eight-minute version.
He said his inspiration comes from individuals around Sarasota, including Nate Jacobs, founder and artistic director of the Westcoast Back Theater Troupe, where Mauricette acted after high school.
He also took inspiration from his work over the past three summers with Renée James Gilmore of ABC7, daughter of activist Edward James II, on her annual Memorial Day segment.
Finally, during his sophomore year, before "Spare Me," he worked with Vickie Oldham, president of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition, as part of a group of Ringling students designing the exhibits found in the Leonard Reid House in Newtown.
The only Black student to contribute to the project, he worked during that time on a documentary on Reid, who was instrumental in establishing Sarasota’s Black community.
However, Mauricette said Sarasota will not necessarily be the setting for the feature, and it could even be a fictional town.
“As long as I stay true to those experiences, to that journey, to that feeling, it can be placed anywhere," he said.
Bringing the project together is a crew largely comprising Ringling College alumni, including graduate Tony Gallucci, who produced the short and returns as director of photography.
However, Mauricette hopes the local community will contribute as well.
"One thing that we're putting priority on is finding food," he said, also noting other needs such as cars and locations.
After shooting begins in November, and the film eventually debuts, he hopes the depiction of sundown towns will spark new conversations.
“A lot of people try to live their life and kind of think everything is all peachy-peachy, fine, like, ‘Hey, racism don't exist, everybody's good,’ everybody has a fair life, everybody has equal opportunities, etcetera, etcetera," he said. "That’s not the case. There is still racism in today, in 2024, even if it's not right in front of you, in black and white, it still exists.”
