In 1926, after a visit to Moscow, Hollywood super-couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks unknowingly appeared in a film about a young man who wants to be a movie star to impress his
girlfriend. The director, Sergei Komarov, posing as a newsreel cameraman, convinced the superstars to clown around for him, including having Mary act out a silly love scene in which she kisses
a bearded Russian actor. Around this footage, Komarov and screenwriter Vadim Shershenevich constructed an American-style slapstick comedy about the unhealthy obsession with fame. Pickford only
learned about the film late in life, and Fairbanks died never knowing about it. Now, in 2010, inspired by a statue of Mary Pickford he stumbled upon in downtown Toronto, poet Vladimir Azarov
has composed a series of cinematic poems that revisit this unique moment in Russian film.
