Alec Baldwin’s Film ‘Rust’ Will Premiere at Cinematography Festival to Honor Halyna Hutchins

Alec Baldwin’s film Rust will have its premiere at a cinematography festival next month to honor the movie’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins who was fatally shot on set.

The worldwide premiere of Rust is scheduled to take place at Camerimage international cinematography film festival in Toruń, Poland in November — three years after the Ukrainian cinematographer Hutchins’ death.

In October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing on the Rust movie set in New Mexico with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition.

However, the actor’s gun suddenly fired a live round, killing Rust’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring the western film’s director Joel Souza.

In March, a New Mexico grand jury found Rust’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Hutchins. The weapons handler loaded Baldwin’s gun on the set before it fired and killed the cinematographer.

A few months later, a New Mexico judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin in the fatal shooting of Hutchins. The case was dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to turn over evidence.

The Rust filmmakers have decided that Camerimage festival is the perfect place for the movie’s premiere.

“We knew that our event was important to her, and that she felt at home among cinematographers from all over the world, who have been gathering at Camerimage for over 30 years,” Camerimage Festival director Marek Zydowicz says in a press release, according to Variety.

Zydowicz adds that during the 2021 edition of Camerimage which took place weeks after Hutchins’ death, the festival “honored Halyna’s memory with a moment of silence and a panel of cinematographers discussed safety on set.” The festival will “remember her” again next month.

According to Rust’s director of photography Bianca Cline, who took over for the late Hutchins, the screening will honor Hutchins’ “beautiful” work.

“We wanted to do this to honor her and to make sure that people could see what she was working on,” Cline tells People. “I think that it’s her best film. I think that it’s her most beautiful film, and I’ve seen all of them.”

The screening of Rust will be followed by a panel with director Souza as well as Cline, and Hutchins’ AFI film school mentor Stephen Lighthil. They will discuss the events surrounding the film, including the completion of the movie, in addition to the on-set safety and the role of women in cinematography.

Rust tells the story of a 13-year-old boy — who left to fend for himself and his younger brother following their parents’ deaths in 1880s Wyoming — goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather (played by Baldwin) after he’s sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.
 

 
Image credits: Header photo via Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office (left) and Wikimedia Commons (right) .