How ‘Hanging by a Wire’ Turned Pakistan’s Daring Cable Car Rescue Into a Real-Life Thriller

In August 2023, a dramatic cable car emergency in Battagram in northern Pakistan captivated audiences around the world as footage of the unfolding rescue spread across TV and social media. Six schoolboys were left dangling roughly 900 feet above a ravine after a cable snapped, setting off a high-stakes rescue that demanded nerves of steel. Now, Mohammed Ali Naqvi (Netflix’s Turning Point, Showtime’s Shame) has turned the harrowing ordeal into Hanging by a Wire, a feature documentary that premiered at Sundance.

The film is now Pakistan’s submission for best international feature at the 2027 Oscars, making it the country’s first-ever documentary entry in the category. The film is written and produced by Naqvi and Bilal Sami, with cinematography by Brendan McGinty.

Hanging by a Wire, produced by EverWonder Studio, Universal Pictures Content Group, Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions and 64th Street Media, features eyewitness footage, survivor testimony and cinematic reconstructions that include the schoolboys and rescue workers involved in the sensational story. Abramorama will release the film in the U.S., with a Paramount+ streaming release set for Oct. 28. Dogwoof is handling a theatrical release in the U.K.

Naqvi talked to THR about why he had to make this film, his decision to make it a hybrid movie with an action hero narrative, his cautious and mindful approach to traumatized people and that Oscar submission.

Why did you decide not to tell this story as a “classic” documentary but more like a survival thriller?

There are a couple of reasons for that. I experienced the story like the rest of Pakistan, many in the diaspora and even people following it on the news. This story was being broken throughout the entire day. We were getting updates, and the news was populated by some of the most incredible footage — and it was all shot by the community itself. Our hero footage, which is drone footage that you see with the boys, was shot by this jewelry shop owner in the community. He’s not a cinematographer; he just happens to have a drone and run a YouTube channel.

And there were so many other amazing citizen journalists who were covering the entire situation on the ground. There were the boys within the cable car filming what was happening to them. We live in such a different era now. Even in this isolated area with this indigenous population that’s mostly neglected by the government, where they don’t have proper infrastructure, they all have Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. And they knew that in order to get attention so that they might be saved, they had to [use and share] footage.

The army first tried with helicopters and rescued one person, but then it became too late, and it became nighttime. Then [a local who was dubbed] the “sky pirate” went onto the other side, disobeyed the rules and saved another kid. And then they brought in another guy. So it was like a Hollywood movie happening in front of your eyes. And it ended in a stunning success.

So I was convinced by the end of it that it had to be a film first of all, and it had to be a thriller film. I wanted the audience to feel something visceral. I’ve been making documentaries for 20 years. This is my seventh documentary feature.

And then, maybe a more meta-textual question is this: I think there is an unspoken rule that if you belong to the “Global South,” there’s an expectation for you to perform trauma, or there’s a poverty porn-centric narrative, and I wanted to deliberately subvert that by reappropriating Hollywood convention and placing it in the context of this community in North Pakistan, which I think was decidedly subversive. So I privileged the visceral experience because the social justice issues, such as the lack of infrastructure and class differentials, are inherent in the story.

The local community comes across as standing up for themselves and telling us their story. They just seem like people who get stuff done! Was that part of a focus on empowerment?

Very much so because I think there’s a trope of the white savior, especially in these kinds of stories and communities. This was the antidote to that. This is a community that might not have much, but they were brave, and they were resilient, and they came together — sometimes fighting with each other, but they ended up saving all these kids. Ultimately, it was reframing the narrative of these people as victims to be, quite literally, action heroes, and with full agency. I thought that was something that was deeply compelling and something new.

Anything you can share about the audience you had in mind for Hanging by a Wire?

What I wanted to do was make a documentary for beyond documentary audiences. I wanted this to be accessible to a much larger swath of the audience. Obviously, there are people within South Asia and the Middle East who really like the story, but also the diaspora community. But even more than that, it’s really a specific audience who are into action and thriller films, mainstream action and thriller films. That’s who I made this film for because this is an action and a thriller film. It just happens to have real footage, and it happens to be a documentary.

I wonder if you see this story as one for what people constantly describe as our dark times — because it shows what working together can achieve?

Yeah. When we all join hands together we can move mountains. Ultimately, that is exactly what this community story is about.

Where were you when this whole story unfolded?

I live between Karachi, Pakistan, and Los Angeles. I go back and forth all the time. On that specific day, I was watching it unfold in Los Angeles, and I immediately contacted my co-producer and co-writer Bilal Sami, and we were hooked. Within a few weeks or a month, I had my team, and I went there to approach the community.

The closest town is about 40 kilometers away, but you have to go up this ancient road that is so perilous and so dangerous because it’s really not developed. It was insane. We were on this very narrow path where, if you veer off by six inches, you would fall to your death. But then we got there, and it’s this beautiful area. They don’t have roads, but they have these cable cars made out of second-hand car material. To get from one mountaintop to the next takes about a minute using these cable cars. Otherwise, you have to walk through the ravine, and that takes two hours. So really, they’re putting their life in danger every day.

How did you get the community to agree to work on the film?

We had a tribal council meeting with literally the entire community. The first thing they said to us was: “Had we not put our story up on social media and had the media not picked it up, our kids would not be alive today. So we understand the power of media, but as soon as this happened, everyone left. No one cares, and our cable car is still messed up. We still don’t have any roads, and our infrastructure is a problem.”

So they understood the value of making a film with me, because that outlives the news cycle, and ultimately, they wanted to get their story out onto a larger platform around the world. All the footage that I have, the majority of it, except for the recreations which we did at night, is from the community itself. So it’s literally what they have shot on their phones or their drone. That is a part of their testimony. That is a part of their POV and witnessing, and that’s very essential to documentary filmmaking. That archive is not some news archive — it’s their archive — and they willingly gave it to us.

How did you decide when to use recreations?

I had a guiding principle creatively. I always wanted to privilege archive footage, except for when I needed to get some coverage because there wasn’t enough footage, especially for the night sequences. But even those recreations are cut in with actual archival footage, so they are connected.

And the recreations were done by the actual people and subjects themselves. So we didn’t bring in actors to do them. For example, the boys we put in a reconstructed cable car in a studio in Lahore, one foot off the ground.

What was your input on the recreations?

I didn’t direct them. I asked them [questions], prompted them. We began filming at the end of 2023 for some of our development filming, and then one or two more times in 2024. The majority of shooting was all in 2025, but it was in November of 2025, almost two years after I met them, that I asked them to do these recreations. I didn’t want to do it at a time that was so close to the incident and only after I got their explicit consent and blessing, so they felt comfortable.

I prompted them and said, “Why don’t you show me what you guys were doing at this time?” And they actually got into the cable car and were like, “Well, I was sitting here, and he was sitting there,” and so on. And they had a really good time doing that.

We didn’t want to re-traumatize the kids or anything like that, and it was also done with their parents in the studio. They had also been getting their own counseling, not therapy in the Western construct, but counseling from elders in the community who wanted to talk to them. That was very important for us to make sure that someone in their community was engaged with the boys.

I also have to credit my amazing DP Brendan McGinty, who really did stunning work, matching the style of the archive that existed [with the recreations] to make it feel seamless.

How would you describe the big role of the local community in creating the film?

It really was a community effort. This community co-authored this film with me. The scenes we had to recreate were done with their co-direction.

What are the roles of Paramount and Universal on the film?

Paramount+ has acquired it for streaming in certain territories, and we hope to also have a larger release in other places. We’re really lucky that it was one of the rare instances where Universal Studios was our co-production financier — a Hollywood studio backing our film.

It really took an entire village to make this film but, as it is with many independent and documentary films, one of the earliest partners that I had on this was Concordia Studios, [executive producer] Davis Guggenheim’s company. That’s how I first started my development financing, and then I brought on Mindhouse, Louis Theroux’s company. Once we were more than halfway through production, Universal then came on board to complete the financing.

Do you know what you are doing next, and what’s your take on how AI will affect the documentary world?

With this film, and especially what’s happening in the world of film now, with AI coming up and everything, I think that, interestingly enough, there’s an appetite for real footage and real things. And documentaries are one of the only places that can actually survive. I’m so enthused, especially after making this film, about documentaries.

The line between documentary and fiction is really getting more and more hybridized and less of a binary, just like in the case of this story. It’s a documentary thriller or documentary drama, and so I want to continue to explore that. I love genre film, especially thrillers and disaster films.

I’m actually working on another disaster film, which is very much in this realm, and recreates another [real-life event]. But takes place in America and is set in the world of maritime, so ships and shipping. It’s partially a documentary, partially scripted. We’ve done some shooting, but are in early development on that.

How cool was it to hear that Hanging by a Wire was picked by Pakistan as its submission for the best international feature film Oscar category?

I’m super honored. We’re running right now in the best documentary feature track, and we’re also running for the best international film. It’s a huge honor because it’s a historical pick as the country’s first documentary to be submitted. I’m really grateful to the Pakistan Academy selection committee for choosing our film. There were some pretty incredible films out from Pakistan this year, so I’m really privileged that they chose our film.