Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Premieres in Poland: What to Know

The film, whose cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was killed in a shooting on the set, was screened at a festival devoted to cinematography.

It was just over three years ago that Alec Baldwin was practicing drawing a gun on the set of the western “Rust” in New Mexico when it went off, firing a live round that killed its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded its director, Joel Souza.

The fatal shooting resulted in criminal cases, lawsuits and a reassessment of the use of real guns in Hollywood. In the midst of it all the movie was completed in Montana, with a new cinematographer and only fake weapons allowed on the set, by a team that said it wanted to ensure that Ms. Hutchins’s final work reached the screen.

On Wednesday, the 133-minute-long film had its world premiere at a small if starry film festival in Torun, Poland, called Camerimage, which is devoted to the art of cinematography.

The decision to complete and premiere the film has drawn criticism from inside and outside the industry, and the premiere was accompanied by an undercurrent of controversy. The day before the screening, Ms. Hutchins’s parents and sister released a statement through a lawyer expressing dissatisfaction with the decision to go ahead with the premiere, and several attendees in the festival’s official messaging chat encouraged others to boycott it.

But as the premiere began, the theater was about three-quarters full, and the screening began with a moment of silence for Ms. Hutchins.

“It is not easy to keep Halyna centered in the whole story,” Rachel Mason, a filmmaker and friend of Ms. Hutchins’s, said before the movie began.

Here’s what to know about the unusual event.

Was Alec Baldwin there?

Though Mr. Baldwin stars in the film, as a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust, he was not in the audience on Wednesday.

The film’s main spokespeople at the festival were its director, Mr. Souza, who was injured in the shooting when the bullet passed through Ms. Hutchins and lodged in his shoulder, and Bianca Cline, the cinematographer who completed it.

Mr. Souza and Ms. Cline completed the project after Ms. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, gave it his blessing and stepped in as an executive producer.

Mr. Souza said in an interview following the screening that he was relieved to finally show the movie and proud to show Ms. Hutchins’s work. “I want people to learn a little more about her beyond what happened to her,” he said.

How did the event address the tragedy?

In a Q&A directly after the screening, Mr. Souza explained that for months after the fatal shooting, he could not have conceived of returning to finish the film. But eventually, he said, it became his mission to salvage as much of Ms. Hutchins’s work as he could and to honor her final project.

Ms. Cline described stepping in with the intention of emulating Ms. Hutchins’s style as much as possible, studying Ms. Hutchins’s personal notes about the movie and speaking with her crew to figure out how to style each shot.

“Halyna and Bianca danced a duet together,” Mr. Souza said of the two cinematographers, “and they really danced it beautifully.”

In the film, the odd parallel between the plot and the real-life tragedy is immediately apparent when one of the central characters, an orphaned 13-year-old boy (Patrick Scott McDermott), accidentally shoots a rancher. The boy’s grandfather, played by a gun-toting Mr. Baldwin, breaks the teenager out of custody and then tries to lead him to safety.

“I think it’s really hard to separate what happened as you watch the film, especially with all the weapons,” said Samuel Romero, a cinematographer who attended the screening. “But more than that, it’s the story itself: It’s about an orphan caught in a myriad of tragedies and you can’t help but think of Halyna’s son.”

How did the shooting happen?

The shooting took place on Oct. 21, 2021, on a ranch outside of Santa Fe, in a set built to look like a 19th-century western church, where the script called for Mr. Baldwin’s character to be cornered by lawmen.

Mr. Baldwin was told on the day of the shooting that the gun he was given was “cold,” meaning that it should not have been capable of firing or wounding anyone. But as they set up for a close-up of Mr. Baldwin drawing an old-fashioned revolver, the gun fired a live bullet.

The realization that live rounds had made it onto the film set was shocking. Real ammunition was banned on the set — as is typical in Hollywood — and the armorer was supposed to load the gun with only dummy rounds, which are inert and built to resemble real rounds for the camera. Five more live rounds were later found on the set.

Who was held criminally responsible?

The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who was in charge of safety on set, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, avoiding prison time.

Mr. Baldwin had several reversals of fortune. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter in early 2023 but the charges were dropped a few months later so prosecutors could consider new evidence. He was charged again in early 2024 and went to trial over the summer. After a series of dramatic episodes in the courtroom, the judge dismissed the case against him, ruling that the state had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto the set.

Why was the movie completed?

After the death of Ms. Hutchins, a 42-year-old up-and-coming cinematographer from Ukraine, her husband and son sued the production and Mr. Baldwin, saying that the production’s lax safety protocols had led to her death.

As part of a settlement agreement, Mr. Hutchins stepped in as an executive producer. Ms. Hutchins’s husband and son will financially benefit from the movie’s release, but its theatrical distribution partner has yet to be announced.

At the time of the settlement, Mr. Hutchins said in a statement, “I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work.”

How was the movie changed after the shooting?

The production, which originally had a budget of about $6.5 million, was initially filmed on a movie ranch outside of Santa Fe. In resuming the production in Montana in 2023, with a new budget of about $8 million, Mr. Souza rewrote the script to exclude the church scene during which the fatal shooting occurred. Instead, he is cornered in a saloon, where a gunfight ensues.

To maximize the amount of Ms. Hutchins’s footage in the finished production, the moviemakers puzzled together old and new footage by employing editing tricks and, in a few instances, special effects that replaced actors’ heads.

At the end of the movie, viewers saw a quote attributed to Ms. Hutchins: “What can we do to make this better?” Mr. Souza said that Ms. Hutchins would frequently ask the question while at work on the movie.

“It became our mantra,” Ms. Cline said of the revived production.

Did the Hutchins family attend the premiere?

Mr. Hutchins and his son were not present at the screening in Poland, but their lawyer, Brian Panish, noted that they “support the premiere.”

There have been some tensions surrounding the production’s fulfillment of the 2022 settlement agreement. Mr. Hutchins’s lawyers wrote in a court filing this year that the “Rust” producers were behind on some settlement payments, which the filing said should have been paid in full by June 2023. Part of the settlement is tied to earnings from the movie’s release.

“The profitability of the movie will trigger the payments to the family,” said Melina Spadone, a lawyer for Rust Movie Productions, the company behind the film.

Ms. Hutchins’s parents, Olga Solovey and Anatolii Androsovych, and sister, Svetlana Zemko, also declined to attend the premiere, said Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing them. The family filed a lawsuit against the production and Mr. Baldwin that has not been resolved. Ms. Allred said in a statement that the family saw the premiere as an exploitation of her death.

Why else has the festival been in the news?

Camerimage, which was founded in 1993, has been battling controversy even before the “Rust” premiere. Marek Zydowicz, the festival’s director, published an essay in a cinematography magazine saying that the drive for gender equality in the movie industry should not come at the expense of quality.

Female cinematographers took to social media to express shock at the essay, and the director Coralie Fargeat pulled a screening of her hit movie “The Substance.” Steve McQueen, the director of “Blitz” and “12 Years a Slave,” also withdrew from the festival, where he had been set to receive an award.

Cate Blanchett, the president of the jury at the festival’s main competition, released a statement with other jurors seeking to tamp down the dispute, saying that they “welcome the debate” about gender representation in cinematography and look forward to “meaningful discussions” at the festival.