Boots Riley said publicly this week that the Cannes Film Festival has passed on his work on at least two occasions — declining both his 2018 feature Sorry to Bother You and his more recent project I Love Boosters — while selecting competing titles he considers a less obvious fit for the festival's programming identity.
The director, speaking to Variety, named The Idol specifically, the 2023 HBO series created by Sam Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye that premiered in the Cannes main competition slot, as an example of a selection made over his own series I'm a Virgo.
The Idol screened to a largely hostile critical reception, accumulated a 23 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, and was cancelled by HBO after one season. I'm a Virgo, Riley's Amazon series, ran one season and was not renewed, though it received substantially warmer notices.
Riley's stated position on the festival's repeated passes: “They just don't like my stuff. All good.”
Cannes has not responded to the comparison. The selection committee's deliberations are not public record.