Hanging by a Wire is Pakistan's official Oscar submission.
Mo Naqvi's docu thriller will represent the country in Best International Feature category.
It's the first documentary from Pakistan to be submitted for the category.
Pakistan has announced Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s documentary thriller Hanging by a Wire as its official submission for the international feature film Oscar at the 99th Academy Awards.
Hanging by a Wire debuted at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, in the World Cinema Documentary Competition lineup, before heading to play at the Tribeca Festival. The film is helmed by Naqvi and written and produced by Naqvi and Bilal Sami. The film traces the August 2023 cable car emergency in Battagram, in northern Pakistan, in which eight passengers, including six schoolboys on their way to school, were left suspended roughly 900 feet above a ravine after a cable snapped.
“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 told Deadline. “It’s a straight-up disaster film, except it really happened, and you’re watching real footage of it unfolding live. The community on the ground filmed it themselves and trusted me with that footage, so in a real sense they co-authored this film with me. How resilient and resourceful they were, both in the rescue and in documenting it, is what the film is about, and there’s nothing more Pakistani than that.”
Mo Naqvi On Hanging By A Wire
Earlier in the year, Naqvi elaborated in a Meet the Filmmaker video posted by Sundance. “The way people get around in the mountains is by using makeshift cable cars. And it is so dangerous.”
In a press release in July, Naqvi said, “To me, this film is a statement about what Pakistani cinema can be. A story from our mountains, told by our own people, can be a full-blooded action thriller — it can open Sundance, play the world’s biggest festivals, and be backed by a major Hollywood studio.”
Sana Zahra Jafri, deputy chairperson of the Pakistan Academy Selection Committee, remarked, “The selection marks a historic milestone for Pakistani documentary filmmaking and brings an extraordinary story from northern Pakistan to the International Feature Film Oscar race.” Naqvi won an Emmy Television Academy Award in 2008 for his work on Shame. He has also chaired Pakistan’s Academy Awards Selection Committee.
Pakistan has submitted 13 films in the Best International Feature category since 1959 without a nomination. Only Saim Sadiq’s Joyland scored a shortlist appearance, in 2022. Hanging By A Wire is set for a streaming release on Paramount+ on Oct. 28.
