Afghan boys from nominated film to walk red carpet

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - 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.