When I first learned that an Afghan had been to space, I didn’t believe it.  Afghanistan’s stories are always told through war, so discovering that in 1988 Abdul Ahad Momand was orbiting Earth was a shock.

What surprised me most was how easily his story disappeared, and how much colonialism has damaged our collective memory, leaving little room for stories that do not fit the narrative of destruction. 

While researching Momand decades later, I came across a photograph that reshaped the film: a journalist in Kabul, interviewing him after his return from space. Soon after, both men would be forced into exile, carrying their belief in Afghanistan with them.

I built this film from archival fragments, personal memory, and Afghan music to recover a lost history.

“Forgotten Spaceman” is a film about how nations forget and how their exiled children remember.