The latest drop of Russian indie band Sansara bears the message: ‘Love is everyone’s right’

Russian indie trio Sansara has released a tribute to Russia’s LGBTQ+ community, 12 months on from the country’s constitutional redraft that saw marriage redefined as “between a man and a woman”.

Immersive and dreamlike, the video for the rock ballad We Will Become Better has racked up more than 200,000 views in three days. Opening as birds begin to sing across a Moscow urbanscape at dawn, the camera pans across an apartment to show a young man sleeping in an armchair with a copy of Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince on his lap. We see dozens of pinned polaroid shots of the man with his boyfriend, life drawings of male bodies, and paintings of tumultuous landscapes. While all is still, a parrot in the corner of the room slowly creeps out of its cage. Yet even though the bird is briefly free, it is confined once again by the end of the clip: director Andzej Gavris’ metaphor for an LGBTQ+ community forced to keep their own identities constrained to the inside of their homes.

What follows is a dance between the young couple: one in his bohemian flat, the other one in a sleek Moscow penthouse. Their coordinated moves get increasingly steamy, but the lyrics predict an end to this love story: “Come out of the dream, / Come out of the coma, / Come out of your home, / We will get better,/ But without each other”. The dance draws to a close, and the couple wakes up to the reality of their separation. Only in the final shot does text on the screen declare: “Love is everyone’s right.”