The South by Southwest Film and Television Festival is set to open with I Love Boosters, Boots Riley’s sophomore feature starring Nope actor Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza Gonzalez, LaKeith Stanfield, Don Cheadle and Demi Moore.
The film about a crew of professional shoplifters taking aim at a cutthroat fashion maven is getting a world premiere to kickstart SXSW’s 40th edition.
“Boots has created another wildly original and boundary-pushing vision that’s deliciously unpredictable. We can’t wait for our audience to be sucked into his singular, subversive world where razor-sharp social commentary meets fearless, surreal storytelling and eye-popping imagery — all powered by a ridiculously stacked cast of some of the most talented actors on the planet,” Claudette Godfrey, vp of film & TV at the Austin film and TV festival, said in a statement on Thursday.
Musician-turned-filmmaker Riley debuted his first feature film Sorry to Bother You, starring Stanfield and Tessa Thompson, at SXSW in 2018. He returned in 2023 with the world premiere of his Amazon series I Am A Virgo, an anti-capitalist satire with Jharrel Jerome in the leading role.
Riley wrote and directed I Love Boosters, which is produced and financed by Neon. Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett are producing for Ryder Picture Company, with Savage Rose Films’ Allison Rose Carter and Jon Read. Mike Jackman and Gus Deardoff are executive producing.
I Love Boosters builds on Riley’s creative career that began with making music with the groups The Coup and the Street Sweeper Social Club with Tom Morello.
The SXSW film and TV festival also brings audiences and creatives to music and comedy festivals, in addition to conference sessions with talent from the entertainment, media and technology industries.
Additional film and TV lineup announcements will be made in the coming months ahead of the March 12 to 18, 2026, run for SXSW.
