'Hanging by the Wire', Director, Mohammed Naqvi

0:00Jawad MirYou talked about northern areas of Pakistan. I spent my early years in Gilgit and Hunza Valley, and Pakistan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Like, I'm not saying it because I'm originally from there

0:11Mohammed Ali NaqviNo, it really is. It's stunning

0:13Jawad MirAside from the film itself, what did you discover about yourself?

0:16Mohammed Ali NaqviI learned that, you know, our community is so resilient and so amazing, and the people in the north are so... And really all over Pakistan, but they were so hospitable, and they were so honest and earnest and ready to help. This is such a beautifully Pakistani film because you have all these people from the village, from the government, the police, the city, rescuer, the local rescuer, the, you know, the army, everyone. They don't always get along, and they can kind of tussle with each other, but literally they all had to join hands and come together as a community to save these kids. So it's, it's really a universal story that way.

1:05Jawad MirI had the pleasure of watching Hanging By The Wire…

1:08Mohammed Ali NaqviGreat

1:08Jawad Mir... Which I had come across with the story wh… when it happened two years ago, but I don't vividly remember following it that much… ... For whatever particular reason. And I'm glad I didn't, because, I had no idea where the story was going, and it's a fantastic documentary which…

1:25Mohammed Ali NaqviThank you so much

1:25Jawad Mir... Keeps you on the ed… edge of seat, and, worthy of a theatrical release. I'm even considering watching in theater next week.

1:33Mohammed Ali NaqviThank you. Are you in, Canada?

1:35Jawad MirToronto, yes.

1:37Mohammed Ali NaqviAh, okay. So we'll be, inshallah, doing it in Toronto in October. Right now we released in Montreal this week.

1:45Jawad MirOkay.

1:46Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd then we're…

1:46Jawad MirSo you're having like a screening or is, limited engagement?

1:49Mohammed Ali NaqviTheatrical.

1:50Jawad MirOkay.

1:51Mohammed Ali NaqviSo we're doing 50 or so cities in North America, and, about 100 screens, 25 cities in the UK and Ireland, so…

2:01Jawad MirAmazing

2:02Mohammed Ali Naqvi... I'll start…

2:02Jawad MirAre you guys, are you guys doing any special screening or just more so it's for the public?

2:08Mohammed Ali NaqviThey're both. They're mix. Some are, like, special engagements and some are, like, public theatrical week runs.

2:15Jawad MirAwesome. That's great. Well, let's get started. I would love to sort of get started on the notion of how you came across this story and what instigated you, because it had to be done very quickly, as soon as the news…

2:30Jawad Mir... Broke. Just tell me that process and the story of how that kind of went from the beginning.

2:34Mohammed Ali NaqviI mean, honestly, I was hooked like the rest of the country when this was unfolding. I'm from Pakistan. A… as you might know, I'm from Karachi. And, when this story was unfolding, it was unfolding live on the news the entire day. So I think the whole country was hooked. And, you know, I have to say, during the day it was looking grim. Like, it wasn't looking like these kids were gonna make it. It was, like, a very difficult... But then by nighttime, the story had so many twists and turns and all this amazing wealth of archival footage that was coming out during the day, and then it ended in, like, a stunning success. And immediately I was con… convinced, like, this has to be a film. Like, so that's kinda how I came across it. I came across it like everyone else did when it was happening. And I pretty much went, to,.. My team and I, we went, like, maybe a month or so after, pretty much right after this event, to try to get access to, you know, see and work with the participants and people to make a film on this.

3:46Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd what I can tell you is, so this takes place in Ali Valley, which is north of Battagram, and… ... It's in the KPK province in the Himalayan foothills. Hin… Hindu Kush and Himalayan. It's such a stunning and beautiful area, but it is so isolated and so, like, undeveloped, you know? You get there and you feel like you're going back 300, 400 years.

4:15Mohammed Ali NaqviBut the people are so resourceful and resilient and I'm sure a lot of your South Asian viewers would be familiar with the word jugad, which is improvisation. You can go back to this place that doesn't have roads, and they have kinda constructed their own network of getting around, which is these cable cars, right? Going from one mountaintop to the next. A… and they even have their own safety systems, you know? In the sense that if something goes wrong, they have someone like a sky pirate or, like, first responders there to try to help. Now, in this case, they knew that they needed help, and it's not like you can suddenly call the police and they'd be there in, like, an hour or something like that. So they knew they had to record themselves. The boys recorded themselves in the cable car. Their families were recording them. Even my hero drone footage, which is so incredible, was a jewelry shop owner. I must credit him. His name is Fessel. A… and… and he's, belongs to the larger community. He's also a side, on the side, he's a citizen journalist and is a YouTube vlogger.

5:29Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd he's a stunning drone operator also, as you saw. And he ended up covering the whole day. And it wasn't just him. There were so many other community, like, journalists. And they were covering the whole day, and they were uploading all this footage online because they knew they needed the news to pick it up. And not only did the news pick it up, international news picked it up, and they knew then that is how the authorities would s… get their full attention focused on this. So, and I'm giving you all this background is because when I went there, one of the first things they said to us, was If the media hadn't covered our story or if we didn't upload our footage, maybe we wouldn't have our kids alive today. However, once we were saved, this story happened and everyone moved on, and everyone forgot about us, and our town and our... Not our town, our village, is exactly the same. So they understood the value of media and story and film, and the longevity of a film.

6:34Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd so that's why they decided to join me on this journey. And I very much say that this story, I didn't just make this story. They co-authored this film with me, you know? It was the community, getting that to tell their own story with their own footage, which they provided me all that archive footage, and not having, you know, a news cycle or social media or... Because all this footage all exists in the, in the stratosphere. It's all over, right? And even the participants have experienced it countless times, but this time they got to help frame it with me by sharing their own po… pers… personal point of view and, you know, just giving a much more honest, way to tell the story, you know.

7:23Jawad MirYeah.

7:24Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd they're part of it.

7:24Jawad MirAnd that's, and that came across very vividly. You could tell that the level of comfort that they had on camera and, you know, m… even some of the shots that you guys recreated for dramatic purposes, they did a fabulous job in that, I have to say.

7:40Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah.

7:41Jawad MirYou know, y… you couldn't, I couldn't... I had ti… I had a hard time believing sometimes, okay, is this, like, did you guys capture this as this was happening in real time? Or eventually, you know, I figured out it was

7:51Mohammed Ali NaqviNo. So…

7:52Jawad MirFilmed out

7:52Mohammed Ali Naqvi... So all the daytime stuff, the majority of our stuff is all archive

7:55Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

7:55Mohammed Ali NaqviAll the daytime stuff, all archive. Like, the drone stuff and everything, that's literally real stuff that's happening as you see it. Some of the footage that we have at night, that's where we started having a lot less archive. Y… I mean, there's, like, just it was impossible to shoot, obviously, and even then…

8:15Jawad MirYeah

8:15Mohammed Ali Naqvi... There was some archive that existed. So creatively, my rule was to keep archive as our A footage or our hero footage, and then shoot some recreation that's, like, kinda coverage for that archive. And the other rule I had was I didn't wanna use actors. I wanted the people to perform their own memories…

8:38Mohammed Ali Naqvi... And actually have them direct themselves. So, you know, that to me was a much more honest testimony because I kinda cringe a little bit when it comes to recreat… re… especially when you're using actors. But in this case, you know, instead of doing a talking head with a someone, which of course that's fine, they're providing their testimony, I was like, "Why don't you show me what happened that day?" And I can tell you, I was so blessed because we were shooting, many of those, the bigger, larger village sequences in the actual location. So I had 3, 400 extras recreating their own steps from that day, and they were having a great time doing it. Of course the studio stuff with the boys, we did in a controlled environment in a studio that, in a, in a cable car that we recreated that was one foot off the ground. And we also did that, like, after a year and a half of kind of knowing them and getting them comfortable with this and obviously getting their blessing and their parents. And they were quite happy to do it because they were getting to tell their own story from their own perspective and kind of getting some agency in doing that rather than, you know, being portrayed as a victim.

9:48Jawad Mir100%.

9:49Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah. So.

9:49Jawad MirAnd I, what I meant to say was literally that the secondary B-roll shots of some of the fathers, you know, when he… ... Goes into that room where the control rooms are in the very beginning…

9:59Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah

9:59Jawad Mir... That I felt in the very beginning was this was actually in that room. Because the way you guys cut it, right, like that's the magic of editing… ... And everything.

10:06Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah.

10:06Jawad MirAnd actually the finale, I was having a hard time believing if it was real or staged, I'll be very honest with you. And not… ... I shouldn't say staged, but recreated, what I mean.

10:17Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah.

10:17Jawad MirBut it was phen… phenomenally put together even with your, with your…

10:20Mohammed Ali NaqviThank you so much

10:21Jawad Mir... Emotions.

10:22Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah, no, I mean, I would be remiss not to give credit to my editor, Will Grayburn, and my DP, Brendan McKinty, and, well, of course the rest of my team, including, my fellow producer, Bilal Sami, co-producer Khalid Hassan. You know, I had an incredible team.

10:40Jawad MirI had actually Brendan on my podcast maybe couple of months ago about another project and

10:46Mohammed Ali NaqviOh, wow.

10:47Jawad Mir... He reached out to me. We might be talking about this too next week, so that would be awesome to chat with him as well.

10:52Mohammed Ali NaqviAmazing. Okay.

10:53Jawad MirYeah.

10:53Mohammed Ali NaqviGreat. Yeah. Yeah, he's phenomenal to work with.

10:56Jawad MirYou talked about, the northern areas of Pakistan. I spent my early years in Gilgit and Hunza Valley and all that stuff. Going back there and looking at the beauty of that place, because that's one thing really bothers me is that Pakistan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Like, I'm not saying it because I'm originally from there.

11:17Mohammed Ali NaqviNo, it really is. It's stunning. Yeah.

11:19Jawad MirBut it's not capitalized as a tourist place, and it's kinda sad to see that. When you were, when you were there dealing with these people, because the locals are always, you know, the most honest and truthful and lovely people, aside from the film itself, what did you discover about yourself when you were there?

11:39Mohammed Ali NaqviWell, I was pretty adamant even before I began this project, and I beca… I, my resolve became even more strengthened once I s… started filming with these people and... I mean, look, I've been making documentaries and films for the last 20 years.

11:52Mohammed Ali NaqviThis is my seventh feature in Pakistan, and I love all my old films. I, you know, they're a lot of, like, social justice, based and political in nature. And this film is very political too but in a very different way, in the sense that… I refused to perform trauma for a Western colonialist gaze. I could have easily made this film into something which delved into infrastructure problems and a social ethnographics piece, and basically make the story and these people legible to a Western audience. I didn't wanna do that. I didn't wanna adopt a patronizing and didactic tone. I wanted to make a thriller film that gave these people... These people are not victims, they're action heroes. And to actually reappropriate this vocabulary of a Hollywood action thriller film, but with… situated in this most beautiful part of Pakistan, is what kinda gives us a much more nuanced, complex, and beautiful understanding of Pakistan.

13:00Mohammed Ali NaqviSo going back to your original question, why is it that Pakistan doesn't get its due about being stunning or it has this stun… Because we don't get the agency that's afforded to a lot of Western storytellers. We are only looked at through the lens of trauma or terrorism, and I just deliberately wanted to say, "F you," excuse my language. "I'm not gonna do that this time." And, you know, and I'm very glad because those things are inherent, and you see that even, you know, when you see that in the film. But I wanted the people to express their own truths rather than having me editorialize it. And obviously it's a beautiful place. You can see it. I don't need to tell you it's beautiful…

13:45Jawad MirYeah

13:45Mohammed Ali Naqvi... And you should visit, 'cause you should absolutely visit. Just going back to your question, you asked me what did I learn about myself. Well, I learned that, you know, our community is so resilient and so amazing, and the people in the north are so... And really all over Pakistan, but they were so hospitable and they were so honest and earnest and ready to help. And this is such a beautifully Pakistani film because you have all these people from the village, from the government, the police, the city, rescuer, the local rescuer, the, you know, the army, everyone. They don't always get along and they can kind of tussle with each other, but literally they all had to join hands and come together as a community to save these kids. So it's, it's really a universal story that way.

14:36Jawad MirIt is.

14:36Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd it's about resilience and the, and the power of community and I, and I love that. And so, yeah.

14:43Jawad MirAmazing. You talked about archival footage. Did you have a team for that sort of managed that? And talk to me about that process, 'cause that was a very important part of the fi… film.

14:55Mohammed Ali NaqviYes. I mean, we had an amazing team and my archive producer, Zakir, who's a brilliant archive producer. He's based in Karachi, and that's…

15:03Jawad MirI know who he is.

15:05Mohammed Ali NaqviI'm sure you... I mean, a lot of people. He's just a fantastic…

15:08Jawad MirYeah

15:08Mohammed Ali Naqvi... Filmmaker himself. He's a producer, on

15:12Jawad MirPelaan

15:12Mohammed Ali Naqvi... On Pelaan and, like, so many things. And, so he was my archive producer for this. And what we did was we actually reached out and we actually had people go to the village, and even while we were there, and literally just scour and all the archive from the local places and things like that. Our hero footage, I have to give credit to my producer Bilal Sami, who had reached out to, Faisal, who was the, who's the, who owns the drone footage. 'Cause we had already seen it on BBC and all the international news and Sky, and we're like, "Oh, we just wanna license it." And then when Bilal was speaking to this guy, he said, "Yeah, I actually have almost up to, like, 45 minutes of this footage because I was shooting for three hours that day." And we're like, "What? Where are you?" And so that was one of the first few things that we acquired, and we had happy discoveries and accidents like that throughout the whole journey of archive.

16:17Mohammed Ali NaqviSo kind of really helped. And the thing about archive is it's, it's a different world, right? Like, not just with our production, with so many productions. It's not just about Reuters or AP or... It's not at all that.

16:30Mohammed Ali NaqviIn fact, it's a much more f… far complex and rich, tapestry of archive because y… it's a lot of user-generated content. Especially when you're doing a story of community, there's nothing better than to access that wealth of footage because that is ultimately what tells the story. It's, it's, it's that community's own testimony.

16:50Jawad Mir100%. 100%. You talked about, well, you said the word uni… it's a universal story, and what came to my mind is the film is being distributed by Universal.

17:01Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah.

17:01Jawad MirWhat was... Was that something... T… Talk to me about the festival run and the acquisition. Like, was that something that was always aimed for, you know, like a major wide release? And documentaries rarely get theatrical release, you and I both know that. So just talk to me about that and the…

17:15Mohammed Ali NaqviI mean, I can say

17:24Jawad MirOf course it's everybody's goal.

17:25Mohammed Ali NaqviBut not at all.

17:25Jawad MirEverybody's goal, yeah.

17:28Mohammed Ali NaqviWe started, I started developing this film end of 2023, and we quickly... Concordia Fellowship came on board, which was a fellowship, and they gave me a grant to Concordia Studios, Davis Guggenheim's company in LA, to at least begin my development process, and they eventually came on board as EPs. But our co-producers at the early stage was Mindhouse, which is Louis Theroux's company in the UK. My EPs there were Alok Devchand and, Erin Fellows, who've been really beg… with us since the beginning in our journey. And of course Bilal, who is my co-producer on this, and producing partner. And, We started then, you know, we started shopping it around, as you know, as a filmmaker. It takes us a while to kinda get these things off the ground. Eventually, we had Everwonder Studios, it's a U… a New York-based, nonfiction company.

18:28Mohammed Ali NaqviThey do a lot of prolific nonfiction work. They came on board, and they funded us. And then, we were pretty much, in production by... So they came on board, on, I would say, early 2025, and then we hit the ground running and began proper production, although we shot a little bit prior, as one does for, like, sizzle and research and that kind of stuff. And then, by, I would say, late summer, early fall of 2025, Universal came on board to, complete our financing, so they're our co-production financiers.

19:18Jawad MirOh, okay.

19:18Mohammed Ali NaqviThey're not n… necessarily just our distributors, they're actually our production financiers.

19:22Jawad MirThat's amazing.

19:23Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd that was amazing. I mean, I would never imagine a Pakistani documentary being backed by Universal, but you know, here we are, and, you know, I'm really lucky about that. And we continued filming. We were actually not supposed to finish the film until February or March of 2026, but then we got a call, I got a call while I was filming in Lahore, November of 2025, from Sundance, and they said, "We got in," and not only did we get in, we were gonna be a day one premiere and open the festival.

20:00Jawad MirAmazing.

20:00Mohammed Ali NaqviAnd so that totally changed our plans. I didn't expect we'd get in, because we s… we submitted barely not even a rough cut, a rough cut with slugs in it, like, "This scene here, and this scene here."

20:11Jawad MirYeah.

20:11Mohammed Ali NaqviWhich I was in the process of filming when I found out I got in. And, then we just really has… like, had to do a breakneck speed, not sleep, and literally edit the film and deliver it to Sundance maybe two days or a day before we opened. And then we opened the film, and, then, you know, it was amazing. It did a fantastic job. And since then, we were at other festivals. We went to S… Seattle, Tribeca. We even showed at the Sydney International Film Festival. I'm actually at a film festival right now in Vermont, and then tomorrow is our theatrical opening. And then we were so lucky that we got Abarama to come on board to do a, like a theatrical, limited theatrical release here in North America. We're, we're opening in about, 50 spots. And, then similarly, we got Dogwoof to do our theatrical release in, the UK and Ireland.

21:15Jawad MirAmazing

21:15Mohammed Ali Naqvi... It all begins tomorrow. Yes, and it does, it's not lost on me how l… like, rare that is for a documentary, let alone a foreign language documentary in Urdu…

21:28Jawad MirYeah

21:28Mohammed Ali Naqvi... Pashto. And but, my goal for this film was always to make a film for beyond documentary audiences. I wanted to make a universal film that was enjoyable and accessible thriller action film. And I'm just really lucky that is happening. And then, Inshallah, later this year we'll be, also on a streamer. That's as yet unannounced, but it's, it's a major streamer, and that'll come out after our theatrical run. And then later on, later this year, we hope to have a similar theatrical streamer release in Asia and different parts. That's where... This is still in the early parts of this distribution life cycle, but definitely wanna show it in Pakistan, which is what we're working towards…

22:20Jawad MirRight

22:20Mohammed Ali Naqvi... Like, for November, December, Inshallah, so.

22:22Jawad MirAmazing. I know you have to go. Just one little comment. I would love for you to screen this film in the community, which I'm sure you're planning to, because that would be the most treatable audience to watch it with, I feel.

22:33Mohammed Ali NaqviYeah.

22:33Jawad MirAnd the type of film this is, I feel it acquires a narrative angle. Do you plan on doing that? Is there some talks, if that's okay?

22:41Mohammed Ali NaqviOh, we are current, we are currently in, development, on a…

22:46Jawad MirAmazing

22:46Mohammed Ali Naqvi... Scripted adaptation of this. So, and this film was always a proof of concept for that. What better way to do a proof of concept... I mean, short films, of course, many people do that. They use a short film to…

22:58Jawad MirYeah.

22:58Mohammed Ali NaqviBut in this case, they're like, "Why don't we just make a feature?" And we actually have the actual people and the actual footage, which will probably do a better job rather than a recreation of the archive, you know?

23:10Jawad MirYeah. Amazing.

23:10Mohammed Ali NaqviSo that is definitely, that's definitely what we have in the things. And, but one thing I did wanna mention…

23:16Jawad MirSure

23:16Mohammed Ali Naqvi... Is we're working with One Good Act, which is a nonprofit based in Seattle that works with, on infrastructure projects and education projects, and one of our biggest goals was always to use this film as an advocacy piece for the community to help with their m… many infrastructure projects, and then of course with the boys and their education and, it's a diaspora group where we raise charity to, you know, benefit our subjects. That was always the plan.

23:48Jawad MirThat's amazing.

23:48Mohammed Ali NaqviSo thank you.

23:49Jawad MirNo, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I wish we could talk for more, but I know you have to go. W… amazing film. Really loved watching it. I'm definitely showing it to my family and my parents and all that when it comes out, so thank you so much.

24:03Mohammed Ali NaqviPlease do. Yes, it's a family film. I think m… anyone, I think it's one of my few films that even my parents would enjoy and I would think so, yeah.

24:11Jawad MirYeah, 100%. 100%. Thanks so much, bro.

24:13Mohammed Ali NaqviOkay, thank you, Jawad.

24:14Jawad MirThank you.

24:14Mohammed Ali NaqviSo one thing for your audiences, Inshallah, we do plan to show as part of Hot Docs's DocSoup on October 7th…

24:22Jawad MirOkay, great

24:22Mohammed Ali Naqvi... And 8th. Similarly, we're doing Vancouver and a few other cities, so they're all rolling out now, so.

24:27Jawad MirThat's…

24:27Mohammed Ali NaqviMontreal we just did, so yeah.

24:30Jawad MirThat's awesome.