‘Gagarine’ Filmmakers Bring Humanity to Depiction of Life in Banlieue

It’s been 25 years since “La Haine” made the banlieue a staple of French cinema.

On the back of Mathieu Kassovitz’s cinematic Molotov cocktail, movies such as “Girlhood,” “Divines,” “Cuties” and “Les Miserables” have made the concrete jungles on the outskirts of Paris a haven for cineastes.

But none of them are quite like Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh’s remarkable “Gagarine,” which mixes French social realism with Latin American magical realism before adding a dose of stardust from space movie classics, “Solaris,” “2001” and “Star Wars.”“Gagarine” was a Cannes Official Selection label, unveiling at the Marché du Film Online, where it was a buzz title for Totem Films, selling out around the planet.

The Haut et Court production is currently playing in competition at the Cairo Film Festival.The film is a skillful blend of reality and fiction, making use of archive material and an exciting young French

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