Celebrity News

Afghan actors fly to Oscar land thanks to celeb donations

The young stars of the Oscar-nominated short film “Buzkashi Boys” will attend the award ceremony Sunday night thanks to donations from Adrian Grenier, Leeza Gibbons and others. Afghanistan natives Fawad Mohammadi, 14, and Jawanmard Paiz, 15, play pals obsessed with the country’s national pasttime, buzkashi — a sport like polo, but instead of a ball and mallets, players on horses drag a headless goat carcass around a pitch to score goals. The coming-of-age tale was nominated in this year’s live action short category, but its young stars couldn’t afford the trip to LA. Producers began an online fund-raising campaign at rally.org to gather enough dough to fly them both to the Oscars. With nearly $12,000 in donations from Gibbons, Grenier and hundreds of fans from 13 countries, plus tickets donated by Turkish Airlines, the actors arrived in Tinseltown this week. Director Sam French told us Mohammadi, who’d never flown before, and Paiz were hoping to eat cheeseburgers and “meet Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.” “They saw ‘The Godfather’ on the plane, so they wanted to meet them,” French explained. Trips to Universal Studios and Disneyland — plus a stop in DC for a screening of the short — are also on tap.