If you spend any time on Instagram, chances are you’ve come across a music video clip in the past week—regardless of your musical tastes. But if it was this one by Romain Gavras, you likely remember it. Less a conventional music video and more a short film, “Storm” stands out, already amassing over five million views on YouTube.
Directed by the Greek-born filmmaker Romain Gavras, with music by Swedish rapper Yung Lean and Gener8ion—a side project of French producer Surkin, a frequent collaborator of Gavras—the video transports viewers to an elite British school. What unfolds there, however, is anything but orderly.
Inside the school, where discipline might be expected, chaos reigns. Boys shove faces into toilet bowls, leap from high ledges, and smoke in empty classrooms. Instead of posing for a traditional school photograph, they deliver a striking, meticulously staged choreography—one of the reasons international media have hailed it as a video of the year contender.
The setting appears to be the future (a banner reads “Class of 2034”), yet there is not a teacher in sight as Yung Lean roams freely, provoking his peers—most of whom appear visibly shaken—into dares, drug use, and violence.
Midway through, however, the tone shifts. The boys assemble on the school steps as if preparing for a class photo. But instead of standing still, they break into a powerful choreography by Damien Jalet, while Yung Lean remains motionless at the center, smoking. This is likely the moment you’ve seen circulating online: Lean, jacketless, smoking calmly amid the staged “school photo.”
On his Instagram alone, the clip has garnered more than 3.5 million views, with similar numbers shared across posts by Gavras and Surkin. The full seven-minute version on YouTube, as noted, has already surpassed five million views—and continues to climb.
