‘Hanging By a Wire’ Director on Dramatic Attempt to Rescue 8 People Trapped in a Cable Car Dangling Above a Valley

In a remote part of Pakistan, villagers routinely take rickety cable cars across the canyons that cut through the Himalayan foothills. But in August 2023, the unthinkable happened when a wire snapped, leaving six children and two adults hanging 900 feet above a ravine.

Mohammed Ali Naqvi, a Pakistani filmmaker, watched along with the rest of the world as authorities and volunteers rushed to save the stranded passengers. But the dramatic rescue effort, one that involved army helicopters, makeshift chairlifts and ziplines, might not have happened without some social media-savvy community members, who used cellphones and drones to capture the harrowing ordeal and spur the government into action.

“TikTok changed that game,” Naqvi says. “They knew: ‘Don’t call the police. Post these stories on Instagram.’”

After 14 hours suspended between life and death, all of the passengers were saved. More than two years later, their ordeal and the rescue workers’ heroic race against time inspired a new film, “Hanging by a Wire,” that premieres on the opening day of the Sundance Film Festival. Naqvi, who combed through hours of archival footage, directs the propulsive documentary, which he likens to “The Goonies” or “Cliffhanger.”

“This is like a full-on, Hollywood-style action thriller,” Naqvi says.

“Hanging By a Wire” not only follows the kids and adults as they wait desperately for help to arrive, but it also profiles the government officials and good samaritans scrambling to find a way to reach the trapped villagers. They include Sahib Khan, a local cable car expert dubbed the “sky pirate,” who worked with zipline expert Muhammad Ali Swati to set up a system of pulleys that helped rescue the passengers. There’s also Sonia Shamroz Khan, a district police officer, who helped oversee the operation. All of them share their reflections on the dramatic events, which often had them risking their own lives.

“So many of the films that come from this region are framed through the lens of victimhood, of helplessness, of poverty and poverty porn,” Naqvi says. “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.”

“Hanging By a Wire” includes some reenactments because some of the rescues took place at night, making it hard to find suitable archival material. But it was the actual rescuers and the rescued villagers who were acting out the ordeal for the cameras.

“I know some documentary filmmakers shy away from reenactments, but to me they were showing me what happened to them,” Naqvi says. “They were filling in the gaps. In a way, they were co-authoring their own story.”

Naqvi hopes that the film draws attention to the Battagram district where the accident happened. It’s a region that lacks good roads, and one desperately in need of better infrastructure. It was something Naqvi experienced firsthand when he journeyed to the area to interview the people involved with the rescue operation.

“It’s the craziest, bumpiest ride,” Naqvi says. “You’re going up the Himalayan Mountains. It’s so narrow and you’re in this Jeep. One false move and you fall to your death.”

At one point, he decided to ride in one of the cable cars.

“I was doing some location scouting, and I convinced myself it would be fine,” Naqvi says. “It’s petrifying. About halfway across, I thought, never again!”