Overview
- The Pakistan Academy Selection Committee, which announced the pick Friday, named Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s Hanging by a Wire as the country’s official submission for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards.
- The film reconstructs the August 2023 Battagram cable‑car emergency, which left eight people suspended above a ravine and drew wide national and international attention.
- Naqvi’s documentary combines community-shot eyewitness footage, survivor testimony and staged reenactments that include the rescuers who took part in the operation.
- Hanging by a Wire premiered in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, played Tribeca and other festivals, and has U.K. and U.S. theatrical partners with a Paramount+ streaming release scheduled for Oct. 28.
- As Pakistan’s first documentary pick for this category, the submission raises the profile of Pakistani nonfiction film and could increase visibility and funding opportunities for future local documentaries.