Gagarine

synopsis

Yuri lives in Cité Gagarine, a vast housing project in Ivry-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris. It was opened in the 1960s by the famous Russian cosmonaut, after whom both the building and its young resident are named. Now in a state of disrepair, the building is to be torn down, but this once-thriving hotbed of leftist political activism still hosts a community of residents unhappy at having to leave. None more so than Yuri, who not only figures out a way to stay beyond the council-mandated evacuation order, but to create his own orbital spacecraft within it.