Gagarine

Sixteen-year-old whiz-kid Youri lives alone in the cité Gagarine, which will soon be demolished. While the tenants prepare for eviction, Youri starts making his urban fantasy come to life. Visually daring meditation on life in the banlieues, and the power of following your imagination.

Sensitive and intelligent Youri lives alone in the cité Cité Gagarine, since his mother went to live elsewhere with her new man. This housing project on the outskirts of Paris was built in the early 1960’s and named after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Now, decades later, the site will be demolished. In the hopes of keeping the building from destruction, whiz-kid Youri, together with his ‘blood brother’ Houssam and Roma girl Diana, sets out to fix and clean-up the worn-out flats.

But soon all the tenants have been evicted, and Youri and a young drug dealer are the only ones left. Youri seizes on the opportunity to make his obsession with space travel come to life, taking himself and Diana into a wildly imaginative flight of fancy that must be seen to be believed. Breathtakingly beautiful debut by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, shot around the real demolition of Cité Gagarine in August 2019.