This film screening takes place at Enzian. ALL Enzian Opening Night tickets include admission to our Opening Night Party at 8pm.
5:15PM at Enzian: Opening Night Happy Hour
Before the film, join us at Enzian for an Opening Night happy hour, kicking off at 5:15pm. Enjoy the festival atmosphere with live music, complimentary champagne, and an assortment of light bites. Mix and mingle with fellow film lovers and industry insiders before the talks begin at 6:15PM followed by an introduction by Carolina Caroline director Adam Rehmeier.
Director Adam Rehmeier will be in attendance for a post-film Q&A!
The 35th Florida Film Festival kicks off with the Florida premiere of Carolina Caroline, the latest feature from writer/director Adam Rehmeier (Dinner in America). Known for his character-driven storytelling and sharp emotional insight, Rehmeier crafts an intimate crime story about two people in search of connection and reinvention in the contemporary South.
The film follows a small-time hustler (Kyle Gallner, Strange Darling, Smile) who becomes entangled with Caroline (Samara Weaving, Over Your Dead Body, Ready or Not)—charismatic, determined, and unwilling to settle for the life in front of her. What begins as a spontaneous romance gradually reveals deeper tensions, as ambition, insecurity, and competing dreams test their bond. As the relationship intensifies, both are forced to confront who they are, what they want, and how far they’re willing to go to escape their pasts. Reuniting with his Dinner in America director, Gallner delivers a deeply heartrending performance, capturing the vulnerability of someone desperate to matter to another, anchoring the film’s emotional core with a balance of tenderness and unease. Together with Weaving, this sexy and kinetic modern-day Bonnie and Clyde thriller burns with the reckless devotion of two lost souls chasing an American dream all their own.
Presented as the festival’s Opening Night selection, Carolina Caroline sets the tone for a week of bold independent cinema. Director Adam Rehmeier will be in attendance for this special screening, offering audiences the opportunity to engage directly with the filmmakers behind what promises to be one of the year’s most talked about films.
Opening Night Special Guest:
Adam Carter Rehmeier (Director) is an American filmmaker from Nebraska City, Nebraska, unbound by genre, blending style, humor, and humanity into stories that entertain, move, and linger long after the credits roll. His breakout film, Dinner in America (2020), premiered in competition at Sundance, earned critical acclaim for its energy and performances, and developed a cult following in 2024 thanks to a TikTok-fueled rediscovery, trending on Hulu, Google, and Letterboxd before a second theatrical run into 2025. Variety praised the film’s “bright comic look and energy,” while The New York Times reported on the film’s most recent theatrical run, noting several theaters’ requests to show the film “were the most they’d received for any film,” with one critic adding, “this is what a cult film looks like” for modern movie fans. Rehmeir also co-wrote the film’s theme song, “Watermelon,” which aided the movie’s virality. Rehmeier’s follow-up, Snack Shack (2024), was produced by T-Street and MRC, and released theatrically by Paramount’s Republic Pictures. Named a “Critic’s Pick” by The New York Times, the film was widely praised for Rehmeier’s evocative vision of teen summer, with the A.V. Club calling the film “kinetic… Rehmeier constructs an intoxicating teenage dreamworld.” Rehmeier premiered Carolina Caroline at TIFF50, starring Samara Weaving, Kyle Gallner, and Kyra Sedgwick. The film is produced by Star Thrower (King Richard, Fair Play) and Wonder Company. He just entered post-production on his wild genre-bending feature A Bobby Thing, starring frequent collaborators Gabriel LaBelle and Kyle Gallner.
2025, 105 minutes, USA, Directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier, Not Rated
