In July 2020, Vladimir Putin changed the Russian constitution to ban same-sex marriage with an amendment that defines marriage as between a man and woman. 77% of the country’s population supported the change.

At the same time, Gay Propaganda law passed in 2013 actively functions in Russia. It criminalises representations of LGBTQIA+ community and their relationships, supposedly to protect children from being exposed to homosexuality. It has encouraged a wave of hate crimes that continue to this day. In 2021 the LGBTQIA+ Network Russia was labeled "Foreign agent" by the government, essentially naming the organization government's enemy.

One year on from the constitutional change, this film was released to challenge these offensive portrayals of same-sex relationship.

By making and releasing the film we took the risk of essentially breaking the Gay Propaganda law.

This is the first Russian LGBTQIA+ film in years that actually portrays a gay relationship in dance

Initially at the conceptualization stage it was clear that the film would be controversial for the majority of a Russian audience. Starting the film with two men in love would scare a vast homophobic part of the audience. So we decided to immerse the viewer into the film so deep that they would see beyond sex and cliches. We wanted to show two human beings that are in love.

The idea was to tell a story about love as a universally understandable feeling.

One year on from the constitutional change, the film ‘We Will Become Better’ was released in order to challenge these offensive, narrow portrayals of same-sex relationship with a simple message: ‘Love is everyone’s right’.

We remixed the original song by Sansara and added a second male voice (initially there was one). Then we shot the music video to this song. The main idea of the execution was to portray love between two men without ever showing the lovers together. This was done so that the authorities couldn’t shut the video down using the gay propaganda law. The film was uploaded on the band’s official Youtube channel and social media. It was also broadcast on independent tv-channel Rain.

Over 3 mln views on social media, with 90% of positive comments.

Media reach: over 200 publications. We got support from many Russian media outlets, who were eager to publish a story about ‘We Will Become Better’ despite the Gay Propaganda law.

Many international LGBT+ communities supported the short film and the cause behind it.

The work has created a national precedent: it the country's first LGBT+ video that has been broadcast on TV (an independent channel TV-Rain).

It also revealed and united the part of the Russian population that is LGBT+ tolerant and supportive and gave them a platform to discuss the issues of homophobia in Russia.