The Tribeca Film Festival in New York has long been recognized as an influential platform for independent cinema throughout the world, as it gathers filmmakers together with industry professionals, journalists, and millions of audience members in New York City once each year.
Over 100 feature-length films and dozens of short films from filmmakers across the globe will be screened at this year’s festival, giving rise to new voices and significant stories that are receiving international attention. This year, Pakistan has a particularly strong presence, with two documentaries selected for the festival’s 25th anniversary edition.
What Is the Tribeca Festival and Why Does It Matter?
Founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff, the Tribeca Festival was created in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks to help revitalize Lower Manhattan through arts and culture. Today, Tribeca is one of the largest festivals in the world for independent film and storytelling. The festival attracts approximately 150,000 attendees each year and has had many types of media from film, television, audio and games to live presentations of multimedia installations.
This year at the festival, there are 118 feature films all together including 103 world premieres and 86 short films from across the globe. Over time, the relationship between Pakistan and The Tribeca Film Festival has grown dramatically. The festival has been a platform to showcase the work of many Pakistani storytellers, filmmakers and co-producers, and the growing global interest in stories from Pakistan is seen by having two Pakistanian-focused films showing at the same festival. This is also part of a longer pattern, with films like Among the Believers (2015), Ramchand Pakistani (2008), and Song of Lahore (2015) having previously screened at Tribeca alongside other international selections.
Here’s Everything You Need to Know About the Pakistani Films Screening This Year
Unlike the big-budget commercial films of any given year from Pakistan, this year’s entries in the Documentary category – of which there are two – are also very different from each other in terms of overall tone and subject matter.
Both films reflect current-day Pakistan in contrasting ways.
Hanging by a Wire – A Real-Life Survival Story That Gripped the World
If this title sounds familiar it’s because this film is a revisit of one of the most dramatic Pakistan news stories in recent years. Directed by Mohammed Ali Naqvi, this feature-length film tells the story of the 2023 Battagram cable-car accident in Northern Pakistan when eight individuals (which included six boys) on their way to school got stuck hundreds of feet off the ground after two cables snapped.
The rescue operation lasted for hours and was viewed by millions globally (both live and on news). This is a feature-length film, not a short film. It’s described as a combination of true crime documentary, action, and thriller genre to capture the extreme tension created by the actual events.
This docuseries does not fictionalize real-life events, but instead reconstructs those events through the use of documentary-style storytelling, allowing the viewer to experience the emotional and physical intensity of the crisis. The film has an urgent, realistic tone, painting a picture of both the fear experienced by individuals who were trapped and the pressures being placed on those who are trying to rescue the trapped individuals while racing against time.
Rather than focusing only on the spectacle of the incident, the documentary also touches on deeper structural questions – like infrastructure gaps in remote regions, emergency response limitations, and how uneven access to safety shapes who is most vulnerable in moments of crisis. This film incorporates both observational documentary footage and cinematic pacing, creating a sense of real-time suspense and excitement, while also being firmly rooted in factual reporting. It is the type of film that not only informs you what happened, but makes you feel the instability of every passing minute.
The documentary has already attracted significant international attention. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year before securing a place at Tribeca, giving it two major festival showcases in the same year.
The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony – Girls, Dreams, and Defiance in Karachi
The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony, directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Habiba Nosheen, is rooted in hope. This documentary, which chronicles the lives of young girls who live in Karachi’s Machhar Colony (one of Pakistan’s most populated urban slum areas), tells the moving story of how they built themselves a gymnastics team despite the various societal and economic barriers that stood in their way.
Approximately 92 – 93 minutes long, it is a full-length feature film that is screening as part of the Tribeca Documentary Competition. According to Tribeca, The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony is a “lyrical coming-of-age journey,” following the lives of young women whose prospects often appear to be predetermined by poverty, limited access to education or opportunity, and marginalization within society. They gain confidence, build community, and derive hope in their quest to create new possibilities for themselves through gymnastics.
The location of this story is what gives it so much strength. Residents of Machhar Colony experience day-to-day problems whether it be trying to get documents, gaining access to services or finding a job. Thus, having a gymnastics team means so much more than just sport; it represents an act of strength and a desire to define oneself through achievement.
The style of the documentary is very intimate, positive and low-key political in nature, i.e., it shows everyday people doing courageous things through the power of sport rather than through speeches or confrontations. The project has a number of notable supporters behind it, including Malala Yousafzai who is an Executive Producer which adds yet another well-known Pakistani voice to an already well-known international project.
Hanging by a Wire looks at a moment of national crisis, survival, and collective action. The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony focuses on everyday lives, determination, and the pursuit of possibility in difficult circumstances. One unfolds over hours; the other unfolds over years. Together, they showcase the range and ambition of contemporary Pakistani documentary filmmaking. At a festival that has spent 25 years championing powerful independent stories from around the world, these two films ensure that Pakistan will have a meaningful voice in the conversation at Tribeca 2026.
