Q&A with Cédric Ido on March 4

As eight planets prepare to enter an auspicious alignment, drug dealer Christophe (Jean-Baptiste Anoumon) returns home to the housing projects after serving time in prison, only to find that the familiar milieu has changed in his absence. His friend Daniel (Max Gomis) has gone straight, pursuing a career as a professional runner, while Christophe’s brother, Joshua (Steve Tientcheu), now paralyzed from the waist down, has continued to sell narcotics. Shooting in his hometown of Seine-Saint-Denis, French-Burkinabe actor and writer-director Cédric Ido puts a sci-fi twist on this gritty, up-to-the-minute crime saga as the planetary configuration wreaks unexpected mental havoc on the towers’ residents. Equally evoking the aliens-versus-gangs thriller Attack the Block and Ladj Ly’s recent Oscar nominee and Cannes prize winner Les Misérables, Ido adroitly uses genre to comment on race, class, and the struggles of the recently incarcerated to reintegrate into society.