'Rust' to premiere three years after on-set shooting

The Western "Rust" will get its world premiere on Wednesday at a Polish film festival, three years on from a shock on-set shooting that killed the cinematographer.

Hollywood A-lister Alec Baldwin was accused of violating basic gun safety rules in the 2021 death of Halyna Hutchins. Still, his involuntary manslaughter trial was dismissed over withheld evidence earlier this year.

The late cinematographer's mother, Olga Solovey, said Tuesday she refused to attend the festival for the film's promotion "especially now when there is still no justice for my daughter."

"Baldwin continues to increase my pain with his refusal to apologize to me and his refusal to take responsibility for her death," she said in a statement.

Rust posterIMDb

Director Joel Souza, wounded in the shooting, will introduce the movie at the Camerimage Film Festival in Torun, northern Poland. The festival is known for celebrating cinematography.

"Almost three years after the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins, a Ukrainian cinematographer... Camerimage is set to honor her memory and remind the world of her legacy," the festival said before the premiere.

It added that the screening would fulfill "a dream of Halyna, who even during the early stages of Rust's production convinced... Souza that their work should be shown" at the festival.

Festival spokesman Roman Tondel told AFP that Bianca Cline, who took over as cinematographer, would attend, but Baldwin would not.

The Emmy-winning actor was holding a revolver during a rehearsal on set in New Mexico when a live round was fired, fatally wounding 42-year-old Hutchins.

The shooting gave the film a sense of life imitating art, as the 19th-century budget Western is about an accidental killing.

Rapid rise

The concept for "Rust" came from research Souza was doing on the youngest person ever to be hanged in the Old West.

Souza and Baldwin developed the idea into a script about an outlaw who tries to rescue his 13-year-old grandson from execution for an accident being treated as murder.

The film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for accidentally loading Baldwin's prop gun with a live round.

Baldwin's trial spectacularly collapsed in July when it emerged that prosecutors had not turned over a batch of bullets that detectives had found during their investigation.

TOPSHOT - Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (C), the former armorer at the movie Rust, attends her sentencing hearing with attorney Jason Bowles (L) and paralegal Carmella Sisneros (R) at the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 15, 2024. The armorer who loaded the gun that killed a cinematographer on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie "Rust" was convicted March 6, 2024 of involuntary manslaughter. A jury in New Mexico took just over two hours to find Hannah Gutierrez guilty over the death of Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 during filming of the budget Western.Photo by Eddie Moore / Journal / POOL / AFP

The fatal incident halted filming, but it was completed last year on location in Montana.

According to her website, Hutchins was originally from Ukraine and grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle "surrounded by reindeer and nuclear submarines."

After studying and working as a journalist in Ukraine and Europe, she joined the prestigious AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles in 2015.

Hutchins later made rapid progress through the ranks of Hollywood cinematographers.

She was named by American Cinematographer magazine as one of the industry's rising stars in 2019.

TOPSHOT - Firearms expert Frank Koucky III demonstrates the use of a gun similar to the one allegedly used in the shooting during the "Rust" film, as he testifies in the Hannah Gutierrez-Reed involuntary manslaughter trial at the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on March 5, 2024. Gutierrez-Reed has denied involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died from her injuries after being hit by a live round fired from a gun held by US actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the movie "Rust". Jim WEBER / POOL / AFP

Controversy around women

While the tragedy prompted some calls for banning firearms from sets altogether, Hollywood has generally preferred fewer radical measures.

Industry guidelines on firearm use were revised for the first time in 20 years last winter. Among other changes, they now specify that only an armorer can hand a weapon to an actor.

Prosecutors said Baldwin was handed the gun on set by the film's first assistant director, who later pleaded guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon.

This year's edition of Camerimage runs until November 23. Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is its jury president.

The festival started with controversy after French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat pulled her movie "The Substance"—which won best screenplay at Cannes—ahead of the opening.

She said she made the decision "after discovering the highly misogynistic and offensive words" of festival founder Marek Zydowicz.

In an article for Cinematography World magazine this month, Zydowicz described the growing recognition of female cinematographers and directors as "crucial."

But he asked: "Can we sacrifice works and artists with outstanding artistic achievements solely to make room for mediocre film production?"

The remarks, for which Zydowicz later apologized, also led Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen to withdraw in protest.