One of Russia's most well known directors Karen Shakhnazarov is in production on a new film that takes the audience inside the mind of the world's earliest terrorist's.

The Pale Horse, based on the life of Russian author and terrorist movement leader Boris Savinkov, is produced by Mosfilm Cinema Concern and stars prominent Russian actors Andrei Panin, Ksenia Rappoport and Anastasia Makeeva.

The script by Alexander Borodyansky is based on a novel by Savinkov, a real-life terrorist who headed the Social Revolutionary Party that assassinated the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1905.

"It is not often that a terrorist also has literary talent which is why the story appealed to me," said Shakhnazarov.

"Savnikov was a friend of Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini. His movement was the beginning of modern terrorism. Through his novel, The Pale Horse, we get a chance to see into the mind of a terrorist, see how he thinks. Of course today's international political situation makes this topic especially relevant."

The story follows Savnikov and his movement and their attempts to undermine the Tsarist government culminating in the assassination of the Grand Duke at the Bolshoi Theatre. The sets which have been constructed on the Mosfilm lot to recreate the streets of 1905 Moscow are so extensive that Shakhnazarov says the studios are considering keeping them as a tourist attraction after the production finishes. They include two churches, a theatre, a hotel, restaurants, numerous shops, palaces and a portion of the Bolshoi Theatre.

Shakhnazarov declined to put any figure on the budget of the film but said that it was the biggest budget production to shoot at the studios in recent years and that the sets alone would have cost millions of dollars to construct in the West.

Shakhnazarov currently also heads the busy Mosfilm Studios where more than 20 feature films are now shooting.

The Pale Horse is shooting from July to the end of September at the Bolshoi Theatre and other Moscow locations as well as on the set at Mosfilm. It is due to be released early next year.