re-released with a wide distribution and earned international success. With the war approaching Moscow, Eisenstein was one of many filmmakers evacuated to Alma-Ata, where he first considered the idea of making a film about Tsar Ivan IV. Eisenstein corresponded with Prokofiev from Alma-Ata, and was joined by him there in 1942. Prokofiev composed the score for Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible and Eisenstein reciprocated by designing sets for an operatic rendition of War and Peace that Prokofiev was developing. Ivan trilogy Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible, Part I, presenting Ivan IV of Russia as a national hero, won Stalin's approval (and a Stalin Prize), but the sequel, Ivan the Terrible, Part II, was criticized by various authorities and went unreleased until 1958. All footage from Ivan the Terrible, Part III was confiscated whilst the film was still incomplete, and most of it was destroyed, though several filmed scenes exist. Personal life There have been debates about Eisenstein's sexuality, with a film covering Eisenstein's homosexuality allegedly running into difficulties in Russia. His contemporaries believed that Eisenstein was gay, though it is possible that he was celibate all his life. According to film critic Vitaly Vulf, his ten year friendship with Grigori Aleksandrov "is still a subject of speculation and gossips, although there is no evidence they had had a sexual relationship. Aleksandrov himself took these rumors calmly: 'Maybe he was infatuated by me ... I've never been infatuated by him.' Eisenstein, for the rest of his life, believed Aleksandrov had betrayed him when he married Orlova." In 1925, Aleksandrov heard him tell the Polish journalist, Waclaw Solski that "I'm not interested in girls" and burst out laughing, then quickly stopped and turned red with embarrassment. Recalling the incident, Solski wrote "Not until later, when I learned what everyone in Moscow knew, did Aleksandrov's odd behaviour become understandable." Upton Sinclair came to the same conclusion after the discovery of Eisenstein's pornographic drawings by customs officials. He later told Marie Seaton: "All his associates were Trotskyites, and all homos ... Men of that sort stick together." In Russia, no laws were repealed in 1917. The USSR was a nation created from scratch and laws prohibiting homosexual relations were first introduced in 1934.Seven months after it became a criminal offence, Eisenstein married filmmaker and screenwriter Pera Atasheva (born Pearl Moiseyevna Fogelman; 1900 – 24 September 1965). Aleksandrov married Orlova during that same year. Eisenstein