ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan has selected Hanging by a Wire, a documentary thriller about the 2023 Battagram cable car rescue, as its official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, marking the first time the country has put forward a documentary in the category.
Directed by Mohammed Ali “Mo” Naqvi and written and produced by Naqvi alongside Bilal Sami, the film revisits the August 2023 emergency in which six schoolchildren and two adults were left stranded roughly 900 feet above the ground in a cable car in northern Pakistan after one of its cables snapped. The rescue effort was followed live across Pakistan and internationally at the time. The film combines eyewitness footage, survivor testimony, and cinematic reconstructions featuring participants in the actual rescue, presented as a documentary thriller.
“I’m honored that Hanging by a Wire has been selected to represent Pakistan in the International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, and grateful to the Pakistan Academy Selection Committee,” Naqvi said in a statement. Sana Zahra Jafri, deputy chairperson of the Pakistan Academy Selection Committee, called the choice “a historic milestone for Pakistani documentary filmmaking,” adding that it “brings an extraordinary story from northern Pakistan to the International Feature Film Oscar race.”
The film is produced by EverWonder Studio, Universal Pictures Content Group, Mindhouse Productions, and 64th Street Media, with production involving teams from Pakistan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Dogwoof holds its theatrical distribution rights in the UK, while Abramorama is handling its US theatrical release. It premiered on the opening day of the Sundance Film Festival in January 2026 in the World Cinema Documentary competition, and was later screened at the Tribeca Festival.
Pakistan has submitted a film for Best International Feature Film 13 times since its first entry in 1959, and has yet to receive a nomination in the category. Hanging by a Wire now carries that record into its 14th attempt, as the first documentary the country has ever put forward for the award.
