GODSPELL Documentary, OVER YOUR DEAD BODY, & More Among Florida Film Festival Lineup

The Florida Film Festival has announced the film lineup and events schedule for next month’s 35th edition, featuring a documentary about the original Toronto production of the musical Godspell, the dark comedy Over Your Dead Body, and more. Take a look at highlights from the festival lineup below.

Taking place April 10-19, FFF will showcase 161 films representing 31 countries, screening at the Enzian Theater. Passes, tickets and more information on the Florida Film Festival are available here.

The festival will kick off with an Opening Night presentation of Adam Carter Rehmeier’s renegade road trip movie Carolina, Caroline, featuring a gala Centerpiece presentation of Jorma Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body, starring Samara Weaving, before wrapping up with a 75th Anniversary screening of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, Strangers on a Train.

The subjects of this year’s celebrated “An Evening With.." events will be Academy Award-nominee Paul Giamatti and Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Beverly Hills Cop’s Judge Reinhold.

The lineup includes 24 world premieres and screenings of highly anticipated titles from filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh (The Christophers), Kirk Jones (I Swear), Gregg Araki (I Want Your Sex), Maude Apatow (Poetic License), Daniel Roher (Tuner), and more.

Opening Night on Friday, April 10 will feature a happy hour mixer with filmmakers and film fans, and red carpet entrances for the attending filmmakers, followed by a special Florida premiere presentation of Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Carolina, Caroline. Rehmeier will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A.

On Sunday, April 12, the Florida Film Festival will celebrate the career of Paul Giamatti and welcome him as a special guest for FFF’s first An Evening With.. event following a screening of Alexander Payne’s comedy Sideways (2004) for which he earned Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations. 

Wednesday, April 15, will mark FFF’s first Centerpiece presentation, featuring Jorma Taccone’s Over Your Dead Body and on Friday, April 17, the Florida Film Festival will celebrate the career of Judge Reinhold and welcome him as the special guest of that night’s An Evening With.. following a screening of Amy Heckerling’s comedy Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982). 

Closing Night on Sunday, April 19, the Florida Film Festival will offer an opportunity to see a cinema classic on the big screen via a special 75th Anniversary screening of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. 

Florida Film Festival 2026 Selected Highlights

GALA PRESENTATIONS

OPENING NIGHT PRESENTATION
Carolina Caroline                                
Director: Adam Carter Rehmeier
Country: USA; Running Time: 105 min
A small-time hustler (Kyle Gallner) and a small-town girl (Samara Weaving) embark on a sexy, kinetic road trip in search of an American dream to call their own. But what begins with a few stolen twenties soon spirals beyond their control.

CENTERPIECE PRESENTATION
Over Your Dead Body                          
Director: Jorma Taccone
Country: USA; Running Time: 105 min
A dysfunctional couple (Jason Segel and Samara Weaving) head to a remote cabin to supposedly reconnect, but each has secret plans to kill the other in this riotously violent comedy from SNL alumnus Jorma Taccone (Popstar, MacGruber) that co-stars Timothy Olyphant and Juliette Lewis.

CLOSING NIGHT PRESENTATION
Strangers on a Train (1951)                             
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Country: USA ; Running Time: 101 min
Nominated for an Oscar® for Best Cinematography and co-scripted by legendary mystery writer Raymond Chandler from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, this timeless suspense classic is one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces. When an amateur tennis star whose wife won’t grant him a divorce, and a charming but psychotic mama’s boy who hates his father, meet on a commuter train, the conversation turns to a possibly perfect crime: what if each committed a murder for the other? Special 75th Anniversary showing! 

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

The Call (World Premiere)
Director: Ahmed Bouchalga
Countries: USA/Morocco; Running Time: 70 min
Orlando “arts instigator” Terry Olson takes an extraordinary journey across Morocco, retracing the footsteps of the historic Green March—a peaceful call of unity that still echoes 50 years later. 

Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher                                   
Directors: Dan Deller, Dayna Goldfine
Country: USA/UK; Running Time: 118 min
What if the most important person in rock and roll history is someone you've never heard of?  Meet Peter Asher—Sixties pop star, Apple Records pioneer and behind-the-scenes genius who shaped California’s singer/songwriter era. Even better, he’s the visual inspiration for Austin Powers! This joyous, cabaret-fueled romp through six decades of Asher’s musical history is a time-machine treat that’s impossible to resist. Yeah, baby! 

Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)                         
(Screening with An Evening With Judge Reinhold)                      
Director: Amy Heckerling
Country: USA; Running Time: 120 min
Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a pretty, but inexperienced, teen interested in dating. Given advice by her uninhibited friend, Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates), Stacy gets trapped in a love triangle with nice guy Mark Ratner (Brian Backer) and his more assured buddy Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). Meanwhile, Stacy's classmate Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn), who lives for surfing and being stoned, faces off against Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), a strict teacher who has no time for the slacker's antics.

Frogtown (World Premiere)
Director: Costa Karalis
Country: USA; Running Time: 86 min
Set in a small Florida town and told from the POV of a documentary film crew, Frogtown is a unique genre-bending film blurring fiction and documentary realism, which explores an adult woman’s quest to prove the existence of a magical swamp creature she befriended as a child. 

The Man Whom the Trees Loved (World Premiere)
Directors: Woodruff Laputka, Tehben Dean
Country: USA; Running Time: 73 min
As her husband begins to mysteriously slip away into the trees surrounding their vacation cabin, Sophia descends into grief and fear of losing him forever. Adapted from Algernon Blackwood’s supernatural novella, The Man Whom the Trees Loved is a ghostly tale of the inexplicable horrors of nature.  

Occupational Hazard: The First Coral Reefers                        
Director: John H. Cunnigham
Country: USA; Running Time: 92 min
Sun, salt, and afterparty chaos power this document of Jimmy Buffett and his scruffy first band. Mixing wild tour stories, reefer-soaked “heavy artillery” years, and Jeff Bridges Dude-style narration, even the dark moments feel fun in a buoyant, flip-flop fantasy that fans will want to toast. 

Sideways
(Screening with An Evening With Paul Giamatti)
Director Alexander Payne
Country: USA; Running Time: 124 min
A wine-soaked road trip through California’s Santa Ynez Valley provides a pair of affable but mismatched friends—disillusioned writer Miles (Paul Giamatti) and carefree soon-to-be-married actor Jack (Thomas Hayden Church)—with an unexpected opportunity to confront where they are in life and what they truly want before time, and opportunity, pass them by.

Summer Tour                          
Director: Mischa Richter
Country: USA; Running Time: 82 min
This dreamy love letter follows young Jerry and Annie as they chase Dead & Company's final 2023 tour in a questionable camper van. Neither was alive when Jerry Garcia walked the earth—yet here they are, barefoot and gloriously unbothered, organizing their lives around the music with an intensity that demands respect rather than mockery. Looking for a miracle? Get on the bus.

SPOTLIGHT FEATURES

The Christophers                                
Director: Steven Soderberg
Countries: UK/USA; Running Time: 100 min
The estranged children of famous artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) approach struggling artist Lori Butler (I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel) with a brilliant plan: Lori is to pose as Julian’s new assistant while using her art-forging skills to secretly complete his series of long-abandoned paintings known as “The Christophers.” As the two form a tentative connection, the grift is soon threatened in this sharply witty and entertaining new comedy from Oscar®-winner Steven Soderbergh.  

Cookie Queens                                    
Director: Alysa Nahmias
Country: USA; Running Time: 91 min
A joyous and funny celebration of girlhood and the complexities that come with it, Cookie Queens is a heartwarming coming-of-age story that follows four tenacious fledgling entrepreneurs—ages five to twelve—and their families as they navigate the annual whirlwind of selling, striving, and succeeding during Girl Scout Cookie season. 

I Swear                        
Director: Kirk Jones
Country: UK; Running Time: 120 min
Funny, frank, and deeply human, I Swear tells the inspirational true story of John Davidson, a trailblazer whose honesty and humor helped the world better understand what it means to live with Tourette syndrome. Winner of the BAFTA for Best Actor (Robert Aramayo) and the latest classic British crowd-pleaser from Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine). 

I Want Your Sex                                   
Director: Gregg Araki
Country: USA; Running Time: 90 min
Gregg Araki’s (The Doom Generation) latest film, I Want Your Sex, is a bold erotic comedy-thriller starring Olivia Wilde as a transgressive artist whose new assistant (Cooper Hoffman) becomes her muse. Premiering at Sundance, this provocative, darkly funny tale of art, obsession, and power marks a vibrant comeback for the iconic indie auteur. 

Normal                         
Director: Ben Wheatley
Countries: USA/Canada; Running Time: 90 min
In this darkly comedic action thriller from director Ben Wheatley (High-Rise, FFF 2016) and the writer of John Wick, Bob Odenkirk stars as a new sheriff whose simple assignment unravels after a botched robbery proves that everything in the quiet town of Normal, Minnesota, is anything but!  

Obsession                               
Director: Curry Barker
Country: USA; Running Time: 108 min
From YouTuber Curry Barker (Milk & Serial) comes Obsession, the twisted tale of Bear (Michael Johnston) who uses a seemingly innocuous “One Wish Willow” trinket to win the love of his crush (Inde Navarrette). But be careful what you wish for… 

Poetic License                         
Director: Maude Apatow
Country: USA; Running Time: 117 min
Two inseparable best friends (Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman) see their lives start to unravel when they compete for the affection of the middle-aged married mom (Leslie Mann) auditing their college poetry class. Deeply affectionate and laugh-out-loud funny, this delightful comedy is the directorial debut of Maude Apatow. 

Tuner                           
Director: Daniel Roher
Countries: Canada/USA; Running Time: 109 min
Oscar®-winning documentarian Daniel Roher's (Navalny) first narrative feature, Tuner, dazzles with its whip-smart script and delightful mix of genre elements—odd-couple friendship, tense high-concept thriller, and charming romance.  Leo Woodall (Nuremberg) stars as Niki, a gifted young piano tuner with a unique auditory condition, who draws the attention of criminals who see his talents as useful for opening safes. Dustin Hoffman, Tovah Feldshuh, and Jean Reno co-star in this quick-witted heist flick.