From Kabul to Oscars red carpet

http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Young street seller and teenage Afghani actor to get Hollywood treatment as stars of nominated film.

Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street of trinket shops in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy with bright green eyes is getting ready for a trip down the red carpet at the Oscars. It will also be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane. Mohammadi was plucked from the dingy streets of the Afghan capital to be one of the main stars of Buzkashi Boys, a coming-of-age movie filmed entirely in a war zone and nominated in the best live action short film category. The movie is about two penniless young boys, a street urchin and a blacksmith's son, who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field. It is also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taleban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that banned entertainment and burned films and cinemas during its five years in power.Sam French, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Afghanistan for about five years, said his 28-minute movie was initially conceived as a way of training local film industry workers, the first instalment in his non-profit Afghan Film Project. "We never dreamed of having the film come this far and get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said in Los Angeles where he is preparing for the February 24 Academy Awards and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony. The two boys playing the main characters - Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz - can barely contain their excitement about going to the Oscars. "It will be a great honour for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot. The farthest Mohammadi has travelled was to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister. He started selling chewing gum when he was about 7 years old and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries. He learned to speak English hustling foreigners on Chicken St, the main tourist area in Kabul with shops selling multi-coloured rugs, lapis bowls and other crafts and souvenirs, and gained a reputation for being polite, helpful and trustworthy. He was even able to enroll in a private school, thanks to the generosity of some other foreigners unrelated to the film project. In the movie Mohammadi plays the blacksmith's son, Rafi, whose father wants him to follow in his footsteps. "His life was so much harder than mine," Mohammadi said. "The blacksmith made him go out on the streets. I came myself here [to Chicken St]. My family didn't make me come. I wanted to make money to feed myself and to feed my family. He didn't have a home. They lived in the blacksmith shop." Ironically it is not Mohammadi but Paiz, the youngest son of a well-known Afghan actor, who plays the homeless boy Ahmad. Paiz, also 14, already was an experienced actor: He has appeared in films since the age of 5 and has gone to the Cannes Film Festival. Paiz and Mohammadi had a lot to learn from each other and became friends. Paiz gave Mohammadi tips for acting and handling himself in interviews, whileMohammadi taught Paiz about life outside his sheltered surroundings. "When I saw Fawad was such a good actor even though he was a street boy and he was so brave in acting, I was very surprised and I said to myself, 'Everybody can achieve what they desire to do'," Paiz said. French, who co-wrote the script and produced Buzkashi Boys with Martin Roe of the Los Angeles-based production company Dirty Robber, launched a fundraising drive that has raised almost US$10,000 ($11,800) so far to help bring the boys to Los Angeles for the ceremony. Any extra money will be placed in a fund to provide for Mohammadi's education and help his family. The boys will travel with an escort and will stay with the extended Afghan family of one of the film's producers, French said.