Aelita

Aelita, Queen of Mars, by Yakov Protazonov (1924), is a science fiction film that is recorded as the first Russian film of this genre, and one of the first to have Mars as the protagonist, although in reality much of the action takes place on Earth, and there are no exteriors of the red planet, but some extraordinary interiors and costumes designed by Aleksandra Ekster and whose influence can be seen in Flash Gordon and Metropolis.

It is inspired by the book Aelita or the decline of Mars, by Aleksei Tolstoy, and has everything: space travel, telescopes more powerful than Hubble and James Webb combined, love between aliens, slaves, revenge, red Bolshevik revolutions, and a queen who wants to establish communism on Mars and create the Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Very popular at the beginning, the film was not very favored by the Soviet Government and for this reason it has been very difficult to see until after the Cold War.