'Rust' director pays tribute to Halyna Hutchins at Camerimage, says ...

Rust received an emotional world premiere at Poland’s Camerimage Film Festival on Wednesday, three years on from the death of its Ukrainian-born cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Director Joel Souza told Screen that Hutchins would have wanted the western to premiere at the festival, which celebrates cinematography. Hutchins died in hospital on October 21 2021, hours after a prop gun held by star Alec Baldwin went off and hit her during rehearsal at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Souza, who was injured in the incident and eventually resumed production in Montana in 2023, said: “I’m very proud to have it here. Halyna talked about this festival on set. She said she felt like a western would be perfect for this festival.”

Rust details 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 after he is sentenced to hang after the accidental killing of a local rancher. He is joined by his estranged grandfather, played by Baldwin.

Baldwin did not attend the film’s premiere and Camerimage organisers said he was not invited. An involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin was dismissed in July. Rust armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Hutchins’ widower, Matthew, joined as an executive producer.

A lawyer for Rust Productions, Melina Spadone, sat in on Screen’s interview with Souza and requested the incident with Hutchins not be discussed.

Preserving Hutchins’ original vision

Souza said he returned to work to finish the film to preserve Hutchins’ original vision and complete what was her last piece of work, explaining: “We had to serve two masters, which was the story and preserving every single possible frame Halyna shot that I could in the movie.

“Bianca, our DP for the second go-around, and I both studied every frame Halyna shot,” he said, referring to Bianca Cline, who donated her salary to charity and previously worked on the Oscar-nominated animation Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.

“We’d recreate the set, recreate the light, recreate everything. It was a look that Halyna and I had developed together, and then a look that Bianca and I redeveloped together.”

On his return to production, Souza acknowledged he was in a difficult place. “There are some of us in movies who believe that you like to work in the hurricane, where it’s this big, crazy thing. And there’s some of us who like to work in a very quiet and calm environment,” he said. “At a certain point I realised, ‘Oh, everyone’s carrying me through this.’ Emotionally I was a wreck.”

The US filmmaker continued, “Everybody came for very different reasons, but all had one reason in common, which was they felt touched by what happened to Halyna, whether they knew her or not. They wanted to complete it for her.”

Souza, Cline and Rachel Mason, a friend of Hutchins who is making a documentary about her life, took to the Camerimage stage to present the completed film’s first screening.

The festival’s decision to screen Rust sparked controversy among some in the cinematography community, who said it was in poor taste to promote a film that resulted in the death of one of their own.

The festival countered that screening Rust was a fitting way to honour Hutchins’ memory and remind the world of her legacy.

The closing credits begin with the words “For Halyna”, followed by a question attributed to Hutchins: “What can we do to make this better?”

For his part, Souza hopes his film will mean the world becomes familiar with Hutchins’ work as a cinematographer. “If her family can get some sense of any joy or relief from it, in knowing that their daughter’s work is going to get appreciated and talked about, that’s enough for me.

“I’ve never met anybody in my life who lived and breathed movies more than her,” he added. “If you asked anybody who knew her, they would say the same thing.”

Fighting for gender parity

Souza is also determined to fight for a much-needed boost in gender equality behind the lens. When recruiting a cinematographer for Rust, he drew up a long list and all but two were women.

“One agent said women can’t shoot a Western,” Souza said. “That really pissed me off, so I said, ‘Fuck you. I’m only going to hire a woman.’ I didn’t consider men for it.

“Some may say I’m just trying to virtue signal. I don’t care. I’m going to work until lack of equal opportunity is changed for women. It’s something I feel very strongly about.”

Rust is produced by Matt Delpiano, Nathan Klingher, Anjul Nigam, Ryan Smith and Ryan Winterstern, with Grant Hill.

Camerimage continues in Toruń, Poland, until November 

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