Pakistan's Oscar entry is Hanging by a Wire, the Battagram chairlift rescue documentary

Pakistan has picked Hanging by a Wire, Mohammed Ali Naqvi's documentary about the 2023 Battagram chairlift rescue, as its entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar at the 99th Academy Awards. It is the first time Pakistan has sent a documentary in the category, as first reported by Variety on 1 October 2026.

The Pakistan Academy Selection Committee made the choice and called it a historic milestone for Pakistani documentary filmmaking. Its deputy chair, Sana Zahra Jafri, issued the announcement.

What Hanging by a Wire is about

The film goes back to August 2023, when a chairlift in Battagram, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, stopped over a ravine after a cable snapped. Eight people were stuck about 900 feet above the ground, six of them schoolboys on their way to school. The rescue was followed live by millions of people across Pakistan and abroad, and many readers will remember watching it on television that day.

Naqvi tells the story with footage shot by witnesses, interviews with survivors and reenactments that use people who took part in the rescue.

The film in numbers

It is produced by EverWonder Studio, Universal Pictures Content Group, Mindhouse Productions and 64th Street Media. Abramorama handles the US cinema release and Dogwoof the UK. Paramount+ is not sold in Pakistan as a standard service, so check availability before you subscribe; if you do pay in dollars, our currency converter shows the cost in rupees at today's dollar rate.

Pakistan's Oscar record

Pakistan has entered 13 films in the international feature category since 1959 and has never been nominated. The closest it came was Saim Sadiq's Joyland, which made the shortlist in 2022.

What happens next

Each country's submission goes into the Academy's international feature race, where members first vote a shortlist and then the five nominees. Hanging by a Wire now competes against entries already announced by countries including Denmark, Italy, France, Hungary and Ukraine, according to Variety's running list of submissions.

A documentary rarely gets this far in the international category, so the film's festival record matters: Sundance competition selection gives it a profile that most Pakistani entries have not had.