Hanging by a Wire
(2026 | US, UK, Pakistan | Mohammed Ali Naqvi | 77 min)

Image courtesy of Sundance Institute.

It takes a village of personalities to rescue eight passengers dangling nearly thousand perilous feet above a remote Pakistani valley in a cable car, and one action-styled documentary to make you question whether to ever set foot in a gondola again.

Facing isolation due to a lack of infrastructure connecting remote mountain villages to other towns and important resources like schools, residents of Himalayan towns fashioned their own cable car operations to cut commutes from hours to minutes. In August 2023 two of the three cables holding one such car snapped, leaving eight people (including six teenagers on their way to school) dangling in the homespun metal capsule by a fraying wire. Despite their geographic isolation, however, villagers were extremely plugged into social media, which may have been their salvation.

Naqvi crafts his telling of events like a Hollywood blockbuster, figuratively bringing the gang together through a series of interviews and dramatic reveals. We meet a television anchor who sees the unfolding drama and realizes that her presence on the scene has the power to elevate the story to the international attention required to get the nation’s military to take notice. Next, we meet a dedicated police chief, herself a pillar of the community and dedicated public servant, who mobilizes a rescue effort. As a daring helicopter rescue unfolds, we hear from the parents of the boys recounting their recollections of that day of great peril.

As the hours unfold and darkness approaches, stakes become ever more dire, bringing amazing twists of storytelling and introductions of new charismatic characters who burst into the scene. Much of the story uses outstanding footage taken by onlookers, both from the ground and through amazingly engaging amateur drone photography. What remained uncaptured on the day of the crisis is ably reconstructed through clever cinematography, interviews, and re-enactments.

With any disaster documentary, there’s a sense of “spoilers for history” in that the outcome is known to anyone who remembers an event (or who can do the plot armor math of seeing who is participating). This one succeeds by revealing the behind the scenes feats and foibles, effectively timing their reveals, and centering the actual people who endured the extraordinary events with agency instead of a sense of helplessness. With all of this at the film’s disposal it remains gripping, emotional, and engaging. In the Q&A, the filmmakers talked about wanting to do a narrative version, but the truth may be more compelling than a fictionalized version.

Hanging by a Wire played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. It is available for online viewing from January 29-February 1.