When we first see Keke Palmer’s character Corvette in “I Love Boosters,” she’s strutting through a nightclub and crosses paths with a flirtatious man. The first thing she asks him is his shoe size. He replies that he’s a size 12, and she immediately invites him back to her apartment.

It turns out that she has some stolen shoes to sell him.

The apartment scene in Boots Riley’s new anti-capitalist shoplifting opus was one of the first ideas he had for the film, now brought to life on screen 20 years after he wrote a song that would eventually inspire the movie’s title.

Riley brought “I Love Boosters” to his hometown crowd at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre on Tuesday after a world premiere at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in March. As the centerpiece of the San Francisco International Film Festival, the movie’s two screenings at the 620-seat theater sold out almost immediately. It’s slated to hit theaters in wider release May 22.

Over the past few decades, Riley has established himself as something of an artistic patron saint of Oakland, starting with his days as a community organizer, a rapper (as part of the golden-era hip-hop group The Coup) and the filmmaker behind genre-twisting fare like “Sorry To Bother You” and “I’m a Virgo,” both of which have screened previously at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

“Boots Riley has built one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary cinema,” SFFILM director of programming Jessie Fairbanks said in an intro to the film. “He fuses funky surrealism with political humor and sending visuals into an art that refuses to play by conventional roles.”

“I’m excited to watch this with you. I will take off my hat,” Riley said before the film, referencing his signature tall hat. “What I will say is that it took a lot of pushing to make this happen. You’ll see why when you see it on the screen. And I think it’s my best work.”

As one might expect from a Boots Riley film, the plot is an unpredictable ride through genres, with so many unexpected twists that it’s hard to describe more than the first 30 minutes of the film without spoiling it. His signature colorful set and costume design instill every scene with a fantastic tone.

Palmer’s Corvette leads a group of Oakland “boosters” called the Velvet Gang, who have a particular affinity for stealing from Metro Designers, a monochromatic chain of stores run by fashion supervillain Christie Smith (a devious Demi Moore). When Corvette hears of some special suits worth $100,000, her crew infiltrates the chain — as employees. From there, the plot takes a series of left turns that includes protests by Chinese factory workers, science-fiction technology and a stop-motion animation sequence that rivals the all-time great Bay Area chase scenes. Twice during the film, the crowd erupted into cheers.

Early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, with a current 94% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Outside the theater after the screening, fans buzzed about what they’d just seen.

As a retail worker, Samson Lothschutz from San Francisco identified with the film.

“It’s incredible, mind-blowing. You go in expecting a curveball, and you still get thrown for a loop. You know it’s going to be something unexpected, but then it keeps taking you to another level of ‘oh my God.’ Not only that they have the balls to do that, but that it was pulled off and works so well.”

Oliver Robinson of San Jose said his favorite things about the film were the delicate directorial balance and wild production design: “Being able to juggle all the different elements, with like solidarity across cultures, between America and China. Being able to juggle things like being selfish in your own right, and boundaries, but understanding that you need to help the people around you to achieve that solidarity. Then executing that with a bunch of f—king colors, bro. You need to be a mad genius.”