Alec Baldwin avoids ‘Rust’ premiere as film director pays tribute to late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

TORUN, POLAND: Alec Baldwin was a no-show at the premiere of ‘Rust’ movie at the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Film Festival in Torun, Poland on Wednesday, November 20.

The film premiered three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins lost her life on its set in October 2021 after a loaded gun held by Baldwin got discharged.

The 66-year-old actor was charged with involuntary manslaughter for the death, but eventually judge Mary Marlowe Sommer during a New Mexico trial dismissed it.

Sommer said, “The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings,” as per CBS News.

She added, “If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith to show signs of scorching.”

‘Rust’ director hopes people ‘appreciate’ the movie

During the November 20 event, the movie’s director Joel Souza said, as reported by The Mirror, “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 …”

He continued, “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. I hope people can appreciate that.”

Souza also went on to mention a church scene that was shot before Hutchins’ death. It was not included in the final cut of the movie.

“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 added.

Halyna Hutchins’ mother claims Alec Baldwin ‘continues to increase my pain’

This came after Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey, called Baldwin out for not apologizing to her personally. She also did not choose to attend the film’s premiere in Poland.

Solover said, as reported by The Guardian, “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.”

“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,” she asserted.

Besides, Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwała told The Hollywood Reporter, “Some have suggested we are holding this screening simply to generate attention for the festival, but we don’t need that kind of attention. We didn’t invite Alec Baldwin, and we never considered doing so. That would be too distracting. What this is about is honoring Halyna’s dreams for her work.”