Lesson in History was produced when Peters was a student at the West Surrey School of Art and Design. Having read The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton, she was inspired to make what she describes as 'the stories of black achievement and how stories had not been told.' The animated film was subsequently screened on the BBC as part of the series 10X10. It was shot on 16mm using cutouts, photography and masks.
Maybelle Peters, Gerry White

2025

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938.
2023

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.
2020

Sudan, East Africa, 1980. A team of Israeli Mossad agents plans to rescue and transfer thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. To do so, and to avoid raising suspicions from the inquisitive and ruthless authorities, they establish as a cover a fake diving resort by the Red Sea.
2019

Freddy Maemura Hurtado, a second-generation Japanese-Bolivian, heads to Cuba to study medicine. He meets revolutionist Che Guevara. When civil war breaks out in Bolivia, he decides to join Guevara’s revolutionary army under the name of “Ernesto Medico”.
2017

Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.
2017

With a unique perspective of the accompanying cameraman of Premier Zhou Enlai, the film tactfully tells the story that Premier Zhou went to the old revolutionary base area of Hebei Province at the beginning of the 1960s when our country suffered from the Great Chinese Feminine. He made in-depth research in Boyan commune of Handan District, work closely with the masses, followed up a clue and seized the culprit in four days and nights.
2013

A thirty-minute High Definition documentary which revisits that winter of 1779-80 when Washington’s troops arrived at the densely-wooded area just south of Morristown known as Jockey Hollow, to build a log hut city for their winter camp. The film is an eye-opening look at how the camp saved the army – and the American Revolution – from the brink of disaster. Based on John T. Cunningham’s book The Uncertain Revolution and shot on location at Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown: Where America Survived is narrated by award-winning actor Edward Herrmann, who has voiced many history documentaries over his extensive career. The program was produced by New Jersey Network.
2009

In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.
1997

A spring night is a poetic film which is based on the motives of the poem by V. Lugovsky. The film is devoted to the theme of fidelity to the battle traditions of revolutionary past, to the theme of human happiness the sense of it in the battle for high ideals.
1976

Huck Finn is a homeless boy because he was abandoned by his father, who left the village for over a year. Although he lives in a barrel and the mother of his little friend Tom Sawyer does not want children to play with him, he is always surrounded by many friends. And it is during one of these games, while he is exploring a cave in search of "pirate treasure" that Huck discovers two robbers who had just looted the village.
1976

Biographical film about Eyne Kuliyeva, who was the first woman to be the head of a local governance in 1920s Soviet Turkmenistan.
1974

Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.
1966

A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German admiralty gives out orders for operation "Nibelungen", which would lead the German fleet into a suicidal attack against England and quell the revolutionary spirit, seamen and soldiers from different political backgrounds unite in protest.
1958

During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.
1957

Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
1956
In 1695, a family of slaves organize a rebellion to flee in search of the utopian Quilombo dos Palmares following a call from the spiritual helm. The group travels a risky path to find the quilombo at the height of a great war. But the war is not the end.

Historical drama depicting the events leading up to the 1917 October Revolution produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary.
1958

Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.
1954

Uncle Remus draws upon his tales of Br'er Rabbit to help little Johnny deal with his confusion over his parents' separation as well as his new life on the plantation.
1946