KABUL, Afghanistan - 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 be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane.
Mohammadi was plucked from the streets to be one of two 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 game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.
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It's also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taliban.
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 installment in his nonprofit Afghan Film Project.
"We never dreamed of having the film ... get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said in Los Angeles, where he is preparing for the Feb. 24 Academy Awards and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony.
The boys playing the main characters - Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz - can barely contain their excitement.
"It will be a great honor for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot.
Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister. He started selling gum when he was about 7 years old and soon expanded to maps and dictionaries.
He learned English hustling foreigners on Chicken Street, the main Kabul tourist area with shops selling multicolor rugs, lapis bowls and souvenirs, and gained a reputation for being polite, helpful and trustworthy.
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 Street). My family didn't make me come. I wanted to make money to feed myself and to feed my family."
Paiz, 14, the son of a well-known Afghan actor, plays the homeless Ahmad. He's appeared in films since he was 5 and has gone to the Cannes Film Festival.
Paiz gave Mohammadi tips for acting and handling himself in live interviews, while Mohammadi taught him 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 said to myself, 'Everybody can achieve what they desire to do,' " Paiz said.
