Alec Baldwin skipped the emotional Rust premiere in Poland where the wounded director and friends of late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins gathered in her honor.
The premiere comes three years after the Western film was paused in October 2021 after a prop gun, held by Baldwin, 66, discharged and killed Ukrainian cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, and also injured director, Joel Souza, 51.
The movie ultimately finished filming in May 2023 and premiered at the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Film Festival in Toruń, Poland on Wednesday, but Baldwin – whose involuntary manslaughter case was sensational dismissed – was nowhere in sight.
Souza was spotted sitting in the theater with the festival’s artistic director Marek Zydowicz, as a few hundred audience members packed into the theater.
‘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,’ Souza said, adding that he hopes the film’s release will allow the world 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.
‘The cinematography is stunning and I hope people can appreciate that,’ the director added.
Baldwin, who was last seen on Monday pushing around a stroller in New York City, was not in attendance.
Hundreds of people filled the audience on Wednesday for the Rust world premiere at the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Film Festival in Toruń, Poland
Alec Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for Rust, who fatally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on set three years ago, was not in attendance. (Pictured: The actor pushing around a stroller in NYC on Monday)
Joel Souza, the director of the film, spoke of Hutchins (pictured) at the premiere and said that he hopes the film’s release will allow the world to ‘see the world through her eyes’
Baldwin is understood to have not been invited to the event due to fears his presence would overshadow the premiere.
Souza revealed that the church scene they were working on when Hutchins was shot has been removed from the film.
‘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,’ he explained.
Tickets for the world premiere sparked an online frenzy as the demand crashed the private booking website as the event began to sell out Tuesday morning.
Alongside staging the world premiere, festival organizers held a panel discussion featuring Souza, cinematographer Bianca Cline who took over the project, and Halyna’s mentor Stephen Lighthill after the screening.
The trio discussed events surrounding the movie and how production continued with Bianca following Hutchins’ death, as well as talk about the role of women in cinematography and safety on film sets.
Ahead of the controversial premiere, Baldwin was slammed by Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey, who chose not to attend the event.
‘It was always my hope to meet my daughter in Poland to watch her work come alive on screen. Unfortunately, that was ripped away from me when Alec Baldwin discharged his gun and killed my daughter.
Viewers got emotional during the premiere as festival organizers dedicated it to Hutchins
Souza was spotted sitting in the theater with the festival’s artistic director Marek Zydowicz, as a few hundred audience members filled packed into the theater
More spectators are seen lined up outside the theater on Wednesday for the premiere
‘Alec Baldwin continues to increase my pain with his refusal to apologize to me and his refusal to take responsibility for her death. Instead, he seeks to unjustly profit from his killing of my daughter.
‘That is the reason why I refuse to attend the festival for the promotion of Rust, especially now when there is still no justice for my daughter.’
Organizers had been hit with backlash for choosing to give the film a world premiere in the wake of Hutchins’ shock death.
Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwała told THR ahead of the festival: ‘Halyna had a strong connection to this festival. She attended several times.
‘And we were contacted by her friends, who told us that before shooting even began on Rust, she told them that the film was very important to her and it was her dream to screen it at Camerimage.
‘So the screening is only about that: fulfilling her wish of showing her film at the festival.’
According to Deadline, Ukrainian-born Hutchins is said to have campaigned to the director early in production to screen the film at Camerimage, which honors international cinematographers.
Zydowicz said in a statement: ‘During the festival, we honored Halyna’s memory with a moment of silence and a panel of cinematographers discussed safety on set.
Ahead of the controversial premiere, Baldwin was slammed by Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey (pictured), who chose not to attend the event. She said he ‘ripped away’ her chance of being able to see her late daughter’s work
Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwała told THR ahead of the festival: ‘Halyna had a strong connection to this festival. She attended several times’
‘Now, once again, together with cinematographers and film enthusiasts, we will have this special opportunity to remember her.’
Baldwin’s trial for involuntary manslaughter was thrown out after a judge ruled evidence had been mishandled.
The Boss Baby star has repeatedly insisted that he didn’t pull the trigger of the gun or know why it contained live ammunition.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, was jailed for 18 months in April after being found guilty of charges connected to the incident.
Gutierrez-Reed asked a New Mexico court to dismiss her conviction or convene a new trial, alleging that prosecutors failed to share evidence that could have cleared her over the shooting on the set of Rust.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, however, explained in her written order that Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys did not establish that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the evidence been available to her.
The judge also rejected a request from Gutierrez-Reed that she be released from custody, saying it was moot because the request for a new trial was denied.
In July, Marlow Sommer halted and ended Baldwin’s trial based on misconduct of police and prosecutors and their withholding evidence from the defense in the 2021 shooting of Hutchins.
Baldwin’s trial for involuntary manslaughter was thrown out after a judge ruled evidence had been mishandled
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, was jailed for 18 months in April after being found guilty of charges connected to the incident. (Pictured: Gutierrez-Reed in court during her sentencing hearing)
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for Rust, was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding Souza.
A jury convicted Gutierrez-Reed of involuntary manslaughter in March in a trial overseen by Sommer, who later sentenced her to the maximum 18-months.
Gutierrez-Reed has an appeal of the conviction pending in a higher court. Jurors acquitted her of allegations she tampered with evidence in the Rust investigation.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of ‘Rust’ and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Evidence that Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys said prosecutors failed to share included a report by a firearms expert about the functionality of the gun that Baldwin used, ammunition that was later turned in to authorities and an interview with Rust ammunition supplier Seth Kenney.
Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving her sentence at the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility.
Meanwhile, Baldwin has let off the hook after the judge at the court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said at the time that there had been errors by the prosecution in the handling of evidence, which she said ‘impacted the fundamental fairness of the case.’
The decision came after a day-long hearing without the jury present over bullets that should have been in evidence, which Baldwin’s lawyers claimed were ‘concealed’ from them and ‘buried’ in another case file.
The issue had upended the trial for Baldwin who pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter as he was accused of negligence.
Gloria Allred, who represents Hutchins’ parents Solovey, Anatolii Androsovych, and sister Svetlana Zemko, spoke out after involuntary manslaughter charges against the actor were dropped.
Allred said: ‘He should just have the human decency to say ‘I’m sorry’ in a phone call or FaceTime to the parents.
‘This was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister. It’s not all about Alec Baldwin. There are victims in this case. They are not celebrities, they matter.
‘This dismissal of the criminal case against Alec Baldwin is in no way, shape or form an exoneration of him. It does not change the fact that Alec Baldwin killed Halyna Hutchins.’