Anastasia, Time 0:50 – 5:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOOeLOEa5CI

Anastasia is based off of one of the biggest royal tragedies of all time, touted as one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century: the execution of the Romanovs, the ruling family of Imperial , in 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. The emperor, Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, their five children, and four members of their household were shot to death in the basement of the house they were imprisoned in. The bodies were dragged into the woods, lit on fire, doused in sulphuric acid, and buried in a mine shaft.

Excerpt taken from: https://historicalanachronism.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/anastasia-1997- the-one-where-i-pick-on-a-kids-movie/

Year: 1997 Directors: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman Starring: Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd

Stalin, Time 11:14 – 15:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTv9iZJvx1Q

Stalin had also used the civil war to cement a reputation for ruthlessness. Like all other leaders, he was committed unequivocally to the application of terror in all its guises. “I curse and persecute everyone I have to,” he wrote proudly to Lenin. As if to demonstrate the point, on one occasion he had a band of troublesome military specialists rounded up and imprisoned in a prison barge on the river . The barge then promptly sank for no apparent reason, drowning most of those on board. Problem solved.

Excerpt taken from: Great Feuds in History: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever By Colin Evans

Year: 1992 Director: Ivan Passer Starring: , Julia Ormond, Maximilian Schell

Battleship Potemkin, Time 19:30 – 26:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcUKH9hQKWw

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN 1925 was the 20th anniversary of the 1905 , an earlier attempt to unseat the tsarist autocracy that failed. It was a country-wide rebellion against tsarist oppression, and included a street massacre outside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg* known as ‘’, equivalent to the Derry ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre of 1972 and as bitterly remembered in 1920s Soviet Russia.

PROPAGANDA VERSUS ART Battleship Potemkin’s history is full of people who admire the , but object to its politics. Goebbels is a good example. He wanted the German filmmakers to copy its successful ‘’; he wanted a film that would “make people become Nazis after seeing it.” Battleship Potemkin is constantly referred to in terms of propaganda. One argument for the use of the term propaganda is that Battleship Potemkin changes the actual historical story. The mutiny ended in failure as did the 1905 revolution, but this is left out of the film. The Steps massacre actually took place elsewhere, and was not interrupted by the guns of the battleship.

Excerpt taken from: http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/potemkin.pdf

Year: 1925 Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein Starring: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky,