Two young Afghan actors will walk the red carpet at the 85th Academy Awards Monday after their US-directed film was nominated for Best Live Action Short.
Jwanmard Paeez and Fawad Mohammadi are the protagonists of Buzkashi Boys, the first Afghan-acted film to get an Oscars nomination.
Paeez and Mohammadi play two friends - one working in his father's blacksmith shop, the other working as an ispandi boy, asking people for money in return for blessing them with smoke from ispand to ward off evil spirits. They dream of national glory by aspiring to become champion buzkashi players.
The kids in real life, however, are very different; Fawad Mohammadi is an orphan who never acted in any films previous to Buzkahi Boys. He sells maps in the upscale Shahr-e-Naw district of Kabul. Jawanmard, the son of an established Afghan actor, has been acting since the age of five.
Director Sam French said his intention behind making the film was to reflect a different side of Afghanistan, one beyond the popular characterization of it as a country at war.
The Oscar nod seems to have inspired Afghan filmmakers to focus on developing indigenous Afghan cinema. Filmmaker Faqir Nabi urged his Afghan counterparts to develop the artistic merits of their own movies instead of imitating Indian or Pakistani movies.
"The nomination of Afghan actors for Oscars is a remarkable honor and achievement for Afghanistan. The Afghan filmmakers were previously imitating Indian and Pakistan movies and were focusing on action movies. This movie is a step forward for the Afghan film industry to be more artistic and professional," Nabi said.
Buzkashi Boys is squaring off against four other films in its category.