| Aelita: Queen of Mars | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Yakov Protazanov |
| Written by | Fedor Ozep |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Emil Schünemann Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Languages | Silent film Russian intertitles |
Aelita (Russian: Аэли́та, pronounced [ɐɛˈlʲitə]), also known as Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a 1924 Soviet silent science fiction film directed by Yakov Protazanov and produced at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's 1923 novel of the same name. Nikolai Tseretelli and Valentina Kuindzhi were cast in leading roles.
Though the main focus of the story are the daily lives of a small group of people during the post-civil war Soviet Russia, the film's enduring importance comes from its early sci-fi elements. It primarily tells of an engineer Mstislav Sergeyevich Los (Russian: Лось) traveling to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders, with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope. In its performances in the cinemas in Leningrad, Dmitri Shostakovich played on the piano the music he provided for the film.
In the United States, Aelita was edited and titled by Benjamin De Casseres for release in 1929 as Aelita: Revolt of the Robots.