I Love Boosters

I Love Boosters is coming to Watershed on Friday 30 October, with screenings running through to Thursday 5 November. It's the new film from Boots Riley, who wrote and directed it, and if that name rings a bell, it's because he's the writer-director behind Sorry to Bother You.

It's a big cast on this one: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, LaKeith Stanfield and Demi Moore. Palmer plays Corvette, an aspiring fashion designer who leads The Velvet Gang, a group of 'boosters' who rob clothes from the boutiques of fashion entrepreneur Christie Smith. When Smith steals one of Corvette's own designs, the gang is pushed to the next level. It's described as a wild fashion fever dream and a rallying cry against the system, and Riley calls it an idiosyncratic, anti-capitalist vision.

If you've seen Sorry to Bother You, you'll know Riley doesn't do things by halves. He's got a knack for taking a specific, often absurd premise and stretching it until it hits on something much larger, and I Love Boosters seems to be working in that same vein — fashion as a battleground, a gang of thieves taking on a mogul, and a sharp political edge running through the whole thing. With Palmer leading the charge, it's easy to imagine it as a high-energy, stylised ride.

It's at Watershed in Bristol, starting Friday 30 October and running through to Thursday 5 November, so you've got a good window to catch it whenever suits you best.