Boots Riley’s ‘I Love Boosters’ to Open 2026 SXSW Film and TV Festival

The premiere marks a return to SXSW for Riley, whose series "I'm a Virgo" premiered at the festival in 2023.

The first domino has fallen in one of the most anticipated film festival lineups of 2026. SXSW has announced that Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters” will serve as the opening night film of its 40th edition in March 2026.

A Neon release, “I Love Boosters” follows “a crew of professional shoplifters take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven.” The film stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza Gonzalez, LaKeith Stanfield, Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore.

The world premiere will mark a return to SXSW for Riley, who debuted his Prime Video series “I’m a Virgo” at the festival in 2023. “I Love Boosters” is his second feature film, following “Sorry to Bother You,” which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

“The Velvet Gang has officially cased Austin and decided Opening Night at SXSW 2026 will be the start of their global takeover! We are beyond thrilled to kick off the festival with the World Premiere of Boots Riley‘s ‘I Love Boosters,'” Claudette Godfrey, SXSW VP of Film & TV, said in an official statement. “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. ‘I Love Boosters’ is audacious, entertaining, and guaranteed to get our festival off to an unforgettable start. Trust us, you’ll want to be there when The Velvet Gang bursts onto the scene!”

SXSW 2026 runs from March 12-18 in Austin, Texas. In a departure from previous years, all sections of the multidisciplinary festival will run at the same time, meaning the Film and TV festival will overlap with the business conference and music and comedy festivals. More film and TV programming will be announced in January.

Riley recently served as a mentor alongside the likes of Ritesh Batra and Nida Manzoor at the fifth annual Features Lab for 1497, a nonprofit that champions work from the next generation South Asian filmmakers.