Aleksandr Alekseevich Khanzhonkov was a pioneering Russian cinema entrepreneur, film director and screenwriter. He is known for producing Defence of Sevastopol, Russia's first feature film, as well as Ladislas Starevich's ground-breaking stop motion animation. Most of his career was in Russian Empire. During 1923-1926 he worked in the Soviet Union, where his career ended with a financial scandal, however his past achievements earned him a personal pension and an apartment from the state.

Ladislas Starevich was a Polish-Russian stop-motion animator notable as the author of the first puppet-animated film The Beautiful Leukanida (1912). He also used dead insects and other animals as protagonists of his films. Following the Russian Revolution, Starevich settled in France.