{"id":32267,"date":"2026-08-08T10:41:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32267"},"modified":"2026-08-08T10:41:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:41:38","slug":"locarno-film-forgotten-spaceman-remembers-afghan-cosmonaut-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32267","title":{"rendered":"Locarno Film &#8216;Forgotten Spaceman&#8217; Remembers Afghan Cosmonaut in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn 1988, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/afghanistan\/\" id=\"auto-tag_afghanistan_1\" data-tag=\"afghanistan\">Afghanistan<\/a> sent its first cosmonaut into space. Yes, really. Abdul Ahad Momand went where no Afghan had gone before \u2014 or has gone since \u2014 making Pashto the fourth language ever spoken beyond Earth. So why does barely anyone remember his name, his journey, or the hope it sparked among fellow Afghans at the time?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tPart of the answer may lie in timing: just as the spaceflight took place, Afghanistan was on the brink of civil war, a conflict that would soon force millions of its people into exile. As a new film argues, the country\u2019s story has been shaped by conflict, exile and diaspora ever since, with science, culture and ideas pushed to the margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/locarno-2026-films-pardi-di-domani-open-doors-screenings-1236634144\/\">Elham Ehsas<\/a> (<em>There Will Come Soft Rains<\/em>, <em>Yellow<\/em>, <em>Our Kind of Love<\/em>), a London-based Afghan filmmaker and actor, is working to change that narrative and spotlight a piece of history too often left out of it. His short film <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> \u2014 which blends documentary and essay elements while uncovering a surprising link between Afghanistan\u2019s space history and his own family\u2019s past \u2014 will world premiere on Aug. 9 in the Pardi di Domani \u2013 Concorso Internazionale program of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/locarno-2026-preview-adventurous-films-algorithm-era-stars-1236652023\/\">79th edition<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/locarno-film-festival-poster-2026-cindy-sherman-1236579961\/\">Locarno\u00a0Film Festival<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Ehsas wrote, directed and edited <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em>, which is executive produced by Catherine Tschaepe and Jack Thomas-O\u2019Brien of Ken Loach\u2019s Sixteen Films, which backed the film. World sales and festivals are being handled by Mar\u00eda Vera of Kino Rebelde.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the story of Afghanistan\u2019s spaceman and Ehsas\u2019s own family history, the short also examines \u201cshadows of colonialism and the memory of a fractured and silenced nation,\u201d per its synopsis. Ehsas spoke with <em>THR<\/em> about his surprise at discovering Momand\u2019s story, how <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> came together, and what he hopes audiences take away from it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Can you share a little bit about the journey behind <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI feel this film was almost a coming of age for me in terms of getting to know my own past and my country\u2019s past. I was researching a short fiction film that I was trying to make around space. And then I came across Abdul Ahad Momand, and I was like, \u201cWho is this guy? How is it possible that we have an Afghan cosmonaut who went to space?\u201d He put Afghanistan on the map in 1988. When he called his mom, Pashto became the fourth language ever spoken in space. It\u2019s Russian, English, Mandarin and Pashto. And it just blew my mind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSo I went to my parents and spoke to my mom and dad, and I was like: \u201cHow did you guys not tell me about him?\u201d And it\u2019s interesting because I\u2019ve spoken to a lot of my cousins and family members my age and asked, \u201cDo you guys know we have a spaceman?\u201d And they were all [reacting the same way]: \u201cWhat? Come again?\u201d So, almost at every turn, this was a teaching opportunity for my own cousins and friends as well. It was such a discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAnd I also learned a lot. Through this experience of listening, I learned about making a documentary because it\u2019s my first documentary. I learned to just relinquish control and go where this story is taking me. Sometimes, letting go is one of the best things you can do.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:967px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((545\/967)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-film-still-3-Foreigner-Ltd.-H-2026.webp?w=967\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"545\" width=\"967\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">\u2018Forgotten Spaceman\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Foreigner Ltd.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>The film starts out as a story about the Afghan spaceman, but then it also connects to your family story, and then you zoom out to show us a universal story. Did you know from the start that <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> would also touch on these bigger themes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThis whole film was a complete accident. I was trying to make this fiction film about space and then found Momand. And then I realized that he\u2019s a refugee out in Europe somewhere, so then my idea was that I\u2019d make a documentary about me looking for him. I put in about four, five months of work, shooting different footage around London. When I found out that he\u2019s in Stuttgart in Germany, I thought I\u2019ll go to Germany and speak to him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAnd then several months into this whole process, my dad gave me a picture. \u201cOh yeah, I have this photo of Momand.\u201d That completely blew the whole thing open for me. It was insane. I can\u2019t believe we have this photo, and I can\u2019t believe that this photo speaks so much of my own family and of my own relationship with Momand and space, but also all of us and our relationship to home, to our country, to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Do you want to talk more about the photo and what it shows, or is that too much of a spoiler? And what did you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI pivoted because I felt something was happening here. I am being guided by this film, and this film wants to be something else. Because I come from a narrative background, I\u2019m used to scripting, casting, shooting, crafting, and engineering this whole narrative. But here is a true story that kept evolving, and it kept changing, and I felt the best thing here was to surrender to what\u2019s happening. Maybe the story isn\u2019t about me looking for Momand. Maybe the story is about this photo. And what if I can build something around this one photograph? No spoilers, but for people who see it, they\u2019ll realize why this picture is so important, and  that gave me the architecture for the rest of the film.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Parts of the film felt a bit like a detective movie to me. And it also felt like a journey of discovery where another layer is uncovered. We see some family footage but also official, I assume, TV footage from Afghanistan about the space trip. Where did you find all this footage? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt\u2019s so interesting that you speak about the detective element. I almost felt like a detective trying to find this footage, these different pieces of archive. It\u2019s really hard to find pre-Soviet era archive footage around Afghanistan, especially around such a niche as the space program. <\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:967px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((545\/967)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-film-still-1-Foreigner-Ltd.-H-2026.jpg?w=967\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"545\" width=\"967\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">\u2018Forgotten Spaceman\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy pf Foreigner Ltd.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI reached out to a bunch of official, independent archive houses, [Russian Space Agency] Roscosmos, as well as the Afghanistan archive in Kabul. Because my dad is a journalist, he still has his network in Afghanistan. So I was speaking to a bunch of really interesting people, and through that, we found all of this beautiful footage. But I wanted the texture of the footage to not just be about his flight, but also about the rest of Afghanistan, about the history of his country. So that meant I had to dig deeper into the Soviet invasion from \u201879 to \u201889. At one point, I licensed about six hours of random footage that I didn\u2019t know what it was. I just knew it was coming from Afghanistan and from that part of history. An archive house said, \u201cLook, the deal is we\u2019ll give you this for an affordable price, but we don\u2019t know what\u2019s in it, so you have to just take a blind shot.\u201d So I had all of this footage, and it really helped me get the whole thing together. So, yes, the whole thing is a discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You have big-name executive producers on the film, such as Ken Loach\u2019s Sixteen Films\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI\u2019m incredibly lucky for this project to attract such incredible collaborators, including someone like Ken Loach and Sixteen Films. They are renowned for telling stories that aren\u2019t often told, telling human stories from different times and from different social and historical backgrounds. One of the executive producers is Sixteen\u2019s Jack Thomas-O\u2019Brien, who worked on this amazing film <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/bafta-breakthrough-2025-laura-carreira-interview-on-falling-1236434124\/\">On Falling<\/a><\/em> [by Laura Carreira]. So I have had a bunch of collaborators that I was sending the film to and getting their thoughts. The story started in my bedroom, and it just started getting bigger and bigger with all of these collaborators. It\u2019s all about the magic of the moment [of the Afghan space trip], but also space and what it tells us about home and ourselves. I\u2019m very lucky for the film to have resonated with incredible collaborators who have come on board and championed us and supported us. It\u2019s just an incredible privilege and honor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You mentioned how <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> goes into what space tells us about Afghanistan and, actually, also the exile experience. Can you talk about that a little bit?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhen I started this film, I thought I was making a film about this really super cool guy called Momand, who was an Afghan spaceman. But as the film was evolving in front of my eyes, I realized that there\u2019s this family connection, so it\u2019s also about me and my family. But then you keep going, and you keep discovering, digging deeper and deeper, excavating. And then I realized that actually this film isn\u2019t just about Momand, me and my family. It\u2019s about all of us and all of those people who have left home and moved. It\u2019s about migration, it\u2019s about refugeeship, it\u2019s about the loss of home and the things we leave behind.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:632px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((355\/632)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-director-Elham-Ehsas-H-2026.jpg?w=632\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"355\" width=\"632\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">\u2018Forgotten Spaceman\u2019 director Elham Ehsas <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tHere is Momand, an astronaut who went up to space, took the Quran with him and spoke Pashto up there. And then he came plummeting back down, went into exile, lived in Germany and became an accountant. So, it\u2019s also about what a country loses when its children go into exile. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThat also speaks to memory, history and this divide between the East and the West. The East has these incredible stories, this incredible history, but this fragile memory, while the West has a short memory. As an Afghan filmmaker, I thought it was almost my duty to bring this story to life. I need more people to learn about Momand, and I need more people to know that he was Afghan. We\u2019re not just bullets and blood and violence. We\u2019re more than that. The West has chosen to only show Afghanistan in a specific light, which speaks to a bias. My colleagues from the diaspora and I feel it\u2019s our duty to tell these stories in different ways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>The film mentions that Afghans\u2019 and Afghanistan\u2019s stories usually get told through violence, conflict and war\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tYes, for most of my lifetime, Afghanistan has been defined in the world\u2019s imagination by conflict, headlines of war, statistics of death. But that\u2019s not the country that my parents grew up in, or my grandparents. And it\u2019s not the whole story of the place. Afghanistan is a country of poets and scientists and filmmakers and history and art and music, as I\u2019ve shown in the film as well. And it\u2019s a country that sent a man into space in 1988. When you start pulling on that thread, you find the whole landscape of achievement and imagination that has been buried and the tragedy of the lost potential of those people who had no choice but to move. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Is that also why <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> features Afghan music?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI was faced with this incredible, epic tale of this man, and then through that tale, I zoom out and talk about our country and migration and refugees. But how do I tell that story, especially in a short documentary, in the most succinct way? I love music, especially Afghan music. I grew up on it, especially old folk songs. So, I thought, what if I engineer the film like a music album? What if it\u2019s built around three different songs for the three different acts of the story? And that\u2019s where the inspiration for that came. I went down this deep rabbit hole of old Afghan music that I grew up listening to, but also discovering new songs and remembering which songs my mum or dad used to listen to when I was a kid. I found these three beautiful, beautiful songs, and the fourth one in the credits by an incredible artist called Zarsanga.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:970px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((545\/970)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-film-still-5-Foreigner-Ltd.-H-2026.webp?w=970\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"545\" width=\"970\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">\u2018Forgotten Spaceman\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Foreigner Ltd.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Does the film\u2019s original title <em>Hershewe Fazanawerd<\/em> mean exactly the same as the English title \u2013 <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt literally translates to the man who went to space, or the spaceman. But Afghanistan has two national languages: Pashto and Dari. I was mindful that my previous films had dialogue in Dari, and I never included Pashto, which is actually my mother tongue, and it\u2019s the language that Momand spoke in space. So, I decided to do the voiceover in Pashto, almost as an ode to my mother tongue and to Momand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>I heard that you are working on your first feature as a writer and director?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tYes, it\u2019s a feature film called <em>Our Kind of Love, <\/em>and it\u2019s based on my first-ever short film. We\u2019ve been working hard on developing it with the BFI, and we\u2019re just coming out of the script stage. Making films is so hard, and telling stories is so hard. I think there is value in putting a lot of time into trying to get it right, especially when you want to speak about a specific theme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<em>Our Kind of Love<\/em> ultimately is about the East and the West meeting. The short film was about an Afghan woman who was on a first date with an Afghan man who was born here [in the U.K.], and she was born in Kabul. It\u2019s about how, if you put the East and the West together in a room, they interact. I\u2019m a first-generation refugee. I came from Afghanistan to this country, and so I juggle two identities, and I juggle two cultures and countries. That\u2019s what really always informs my work.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:967px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((545\/967)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-film-still-2-Foreigner-Ltd.-H-2026.jpg?w=967\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"545\" width=\"967\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">\u2018Forgotten Spaceman\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Foreigner Ltd.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>What\u2019s next for <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWe\u2019re really excited that the film will premiere at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/locarno-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_locarno-film-festival_1\" data-tag=\"locarno-film-festival\">Locarno Film Festival<\/a>, and then it is going to Toronto. I\u2019ll be so curious being there for the first screening at Locarno to look at the audience and their reactions. It will be such a privilege for me to see them experience it. The film is how the legacy of Momand survives, and the legacy of these refugees who have done great things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Do you ever think that <em>Forgotten Spaceman<\/em> could be expanded into a feature-length film?<br \/><\/strong><br \/>Well, it\u2019s such an epic story, and it\u2019s such a beautiful story that speaks to so much. So, I\u2019d be very curious to see and discover how it would look as a feature film. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Is there anything else you\u2019d like to highlight or mention?<br \/><\/strong><br \/>I want to also speak about my collaborators, the people I worked with on this film, and especially the music. My co-producer is Lorraine Bhattachary, and our composer CJ Mirra. Our sound designers are Rob Szeliga and John Cohen, who did such an incredible job because a lot of the film lives and dies in the sound. A lot of these experiences are so sonic, especially in space, and we wanted it to be something grand and beautiful. They all smashed it, and that\u2019s what this film, and film in general, is about \u2014 collaboration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1988, Afghanistan sent its first cosmonaut into space. Yes, really. Abdul Ahad Momand went where no Afghan had gone before \u2014 or has gone since \u2014 making Pashto the fourth language ever spoken beyond Earth. So why does barely anyone remember his name, his journey, or the hope it sparked among fellow Afghans at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Forgotten-Spaceman-film-still-4-Foreigner-Ltd.-H-2026-1.webp?w=967&h=545&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}