Neon may once again be the toast of Cannes, which won its seventh consecutive Palme d’Or thanks to Fjord on Saturday, but Boots Riley says the distributor could have had one more big-ticket film in its 2026 lineup.
With the musician and director’s latest film, I Love Boosters, set for release on May 22nd, Riley has been busy promoting the crime comedy, which stars KiKi Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylor Page, Poppy Liu, Eiza Gonzalez and LaKeith Stanfield, on social media.
But when asked by someone at X why Neon chose to release the film at SXSW instead of Cannes, Reilly blamed the French film festival, claiming that his previous projects had also been rejected, including his 2018 dark comedy feature debut Sorry to Bother You (which he dropped at Sundance that year) and his 2023 surreal comedy series I am a Virgo.
“Cannes chose other films shown in its home country, but not ‘Sorry to Bother You,'” he wrote. “They chose ‘The Idol’ over ‘I’m a Virgo.’ They didn’t choose ‘I Love Boosters.’
Riley concluded, “They just don’t like my stuff. It’s okay.”
Riley’s second novel, “I Love Boosters,” is a cartoon of consumerist absurdity about a Robin Hood-like gangster who shoplifts high fashion from the wealthy and sells it for a fraction of the price.
A Variety review described the film as a “sensationalist movie prank” that “occasionally asks us to indulge, but then invites us to get high on what a playful provocation it is.”
Variety reached out to both the Cannes Film Festival and Neon.
