The Fort Myers Film Festival returns May 20-24, 2026, for its 16th year. Over the course of the five-day festival 81 feature, documentary and short films from all over the world will be screened at venues including the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, the Alliance for the Arts, Laboratory Theater of Florida, the IMAG History & Science Center, and for just the second year, dome films will be screened at the Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium.
This year’s festival will include two original films from WGCU’s documentary unit: “Swamp Buggy Fever!” and “Flight 823: Homage to Heroes.”
We get a preview of this year’s events with Fort Myers Film Festival founder and Executive Director Eric Raddatz, who also serves as Executive Director of the Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium.
We also talk with multi-award-winning filmmaker Jordan Axelrod, whose short film “Szypliski” will be featured at the opening night red carpet gala.
“Szypliski” has been garnering high prize on the film festival circuit having won the Special Jury Prize for Best U.S. Short Film at the Palm Springs International ShortFest in 2025, and the People’s Choice Award at the Oxford Film Festival earlier this year.
In recent years past, four of Axelrod’s previous films have been screened at the Fort Myers Film Festival, and he volunteered at the festival years ago when he was a high school student.
