By Malgorzata Wojtunik
TORUN, Poland (Reuters) – Alec Baldwin’s Western “Rust” premiered at a low-key Polish film festival on Wednesday, three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died when Baldwin pointed a gun at her, in Hollywood’s first on-set fatal shooting in nearly 30 years.
Director Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting, told Reuters it was a relief to have completed the film and bring it to audiences, in what he hoped would be a tribute to the 42-year-old Ukrainian.
The film opened to an audience of a few hundred in the medieval central Polish city of Torun, at the Camerimage festival, a speciality event focused on cinematography. The setting was a world away from the typical glamour and fanfare of a Hollywood release.
“I’m excited that people will get to see Halyna’s work, you know, I hope they appreciate her work… It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but it became important to me and important to her husband that people see her final work.”
The gun held by Baldwin fired a live round inadvertently loaded by the movie’s chief weapons handler Hannah Gutierrez on the film set near Santa Fe, New Mexico in October 2021. Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March and is serving an 18-month prison sentence, which is under appeal.
Baldwin had also faced trial, but in July a New Mexico judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against him, agreeing with his lawyers that prosecutors and police withheld evidence on the source of the live round that killed Hutchins.
Souza said he hoped the film’s release would mean people learned more about Hutchins than simply what had happened to her and would get to “see the world through her eyes”.
“That’s one of the nice things about movies. You could sort of see the world the way the people who made it see it,” he said. “The cinematography is stunning and I hope people can appreciate that.”
SCENE REMOVED
In a 2021 television interview, Baldwin said he was told the gun was empty and Hutchins directed him to point it toward the camera and cock it. He said the revolver fired when he let go of the hammer and he did not pull the trigger.
Souza said he realised it would be next to impossible for people to watch the film without thinking of Hutchins’ death.
“I think that’s how people even know about the movie,” he said. “But, you know, by the same token… I would hope that for no matter what reasons people come to it – whether it’s out of curiosity, whether they like Westerns, for whatever reason – I hope they can at least take something from it or they can appreciate her work in it.”
A church scene they were working on when Hutchins was shot has gone from the film, he said.
“It’s just gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. We were never going to finish that… I changed the script and so I wiped that out of it.”
‘NORTH STAR’
Returning to complete the film after Hutchins’ death was extremely tough for the crew, said Souza, but they were all united in wanting to honour and remember Hutchins.
“I was a wreck and I’m not generally a wreck on set. But emotionally, I was just all over the place and the crew really carried me through that,” he said.
“I just kept thinking, how am I getting through these days? And I realise how I got through those days. It’s because the crew carried me through them… they were able to keep me focused on the task at hand. And always remember Halyna. Remember Halyna, remember Halyna. That’s the North Star.”
The Camerimage festival was a fitting place to honour her, Souza said, and the film opened with a minute of silence.
“This festival meant a great deal to her, as it does all cinematographers. I think preserving her work, trying to preserve every last frame of it that we could, and to show it to people and to let them understand how talented she was, I think is a fitting honour for her.”
Asked with regard to the court cases whether he thought justice had been done, Souza said: “I just can’t let that kind of thing or that kind of thinking take up space in me. I’ve just got to move forward. The only way forward is forward. That’s it.”
(Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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