Pakistan has selected Hanging by a Wire, a documentary thriller directed by Mohammed Ali Naqvi, as its official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, marking the first time the country has chosen a documentary to represent it in the category.
The selection marks a significant moment for Pakistan’s documentary filmmaking as Hanging by a Wire brings the dramatic story of the 2023 Battagram cable car rescue to the international awards stage.
The film revisits the August 2023 incident in Battagram, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when eight passengers, including six schoolchildren, became stranded hundreds of feet above a ravine after a cable car suffered a catastrophic failure. The rescue operation continued for hours as rescuers worked under extremely difficult conditions to bring the passengers to safety.
Directed by Naqvi and written and produced by Naqvi and Bilal Sami, the film combines eyewitness and archival footage with survivor testimony and cinematic recreations involving people connected to the real rescue operation. The filmmaking approach transforms a widely followed national emergency into an intimate account of survival, courage and community cooperation.
The documentary premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition and subsequently screened at other international festivals, including the Tribeca Festival and Sydney Film Festival.
Naqvi is an award-winning Pakistani filmmaker whose previous work includes Among the Believers, The Accused: Damned or Devoted? and Pakistan’s Hidden Shame. He received a Television Academy Honor in 2008 for Shame and has worked across documentary film and television.
The 99th Academy Awards are scheduled to take place on March 14, 2027, in Los Angeles. The Academy is expected to announce its 15-film International Feature shortlist in December, followed by the final five nominees in January 2027.
With Hanging by a Wire, Pakistan is now taking an unprecedented documentary entry into the international feature-film Oscar selection process, placing a story from northern Pakistan before a global film audience.