Documentary on 2023 Battagram cable car rescue to premiere at Sundance Film Festival

Hanging by a Wire, a gripping documentary thriller based on the 2023 cable car rescue in northern Pakistan, is set to premiere on the opening day of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, on August 28.

Pakistani filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi revisited the incident in which a cable car carrying children to school along their daily route became stranded after one of its cables snapped in the Himalayan foothills. Six children and two adults were left hanging approximately 900 feet above the ground.

According to Variety, Naqvi described the incident as one of the first rescue operations to unfold as a social media phenomenon, with footage captured by drones, television cameras, and bystanders, helping draw global attention to the incident and prompting authorities to mobilise a massive rescue effort.

After nearly 14 hours, all eight passengers were safely rescued.

"So many of the films that come from this region are framed through the lens of victimhood, of helplessness, of poverty," Naqvi told Variety. The filmmaker added, "I did not want to do that. I wanted to be deliberately subversive with this one. I wanted to show these people as resilient, as having agency. I wanted to show them as heroes."

Naqvi also expressed hope that the documentary would bring greater awareness to the Battagram district, where many communities rely on makeshift cable cars due to the lack of proper roads. In a video shared by the Sundance Institute, the filmmaker elaborated on the dangers residents in the area face daily. "There are no proper roads. The way people get around is by makeshift cable cars, and it is so dangerous because, during location scouting, I did the stupid thing of taking one," he said.

Recalling the experience, Naqvi admitted, "It's petrifying. About halfway across, I thought, never again!"

Regarding the 2023 incident, he shared that local experts told him that the damaged cable was unlikely to survive for more than 10 hours, creating a race against time for rescuers. "This story is told through the perspective of the rescuers, who only have a few hours, and they risk it all to try to save these kids," he said.

The film highlights the individuals behind the rescue, including local wire repairman Sahib Khan, whom Naqvi described as the community's go-to rescuer and a "sky pirate"; professional rescuer Ali Swati, a gymnast and operator of what Naqvi says is the world's largest zipline; and police officer Sonia Shamroz, who also played a crucial role in the operation.

The rescue unfolded live on television and online, filmed from the ground, and even from inside the cable car, which Naqvi said allowed the filmmakers to access an unprecedented archive of footage. "The entire rescue played out live — on TV, online, on the ground, and even from inside the cable car. With such rich archives, we knew we had to tell this story with the scale and intention of a Hollywood action thriller, one that just happened to be a documentary."

More than just a retelling of a dramatic rescue, Hanging by a Wire seeks to spotlight the everyday realities of communities that depend on dangerous cable cars for transportation.