Camerimage: ‘Rust’ Premiere Ticket Demand Crashes Festival Ticketing System
Three years after the tragic on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, Alec Baldwin’s indie Western Rust will finally be revealed to the public on Wednesday. The movie has been selected to make its world premiere at Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival, a respected specialty event focusing on achievements in cinematography. And the first screening in the town of Toruń would seem to be off to a strong start. Tickets to the premiere became available to festival attendees to claim via the event’s private ticketing system early Tuesday morning — and the website promptly crashed, because of an overwhelming surge in demand.
“The Camerimage portal is currently undergoing system maintenance,” a message on the site read shortly after 8am, when tickets became available. By about 8:35am, some festival visitors were reporting that the system was working for them again.
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Camerimage is known for its devoted following, with keynote talks from the world’s greatest cinematographers drawing packed crowds that often overflow into the cinemas’ stairways. But the interest around Rust is unprecedented for the event. The film will be shown just once at the festival, and it will feature a brief panel discussion prior to the screening. Speakers at the premiere will include Rust writer-director Joel Souza, who was struck by the same bullet that killed Hutchins when a prop gun handled by Baldwin was discharged during production in October 2021. Appearing alongside the director will be Bianca Cline, the cinematographer who stepped in to finish the movie after a wrongful death lawsuit was settled.
Camerimage’s decision to screen Rust caused some backlash in the industry. When the screening was announced a month ago, some DPs took to social media to argue that the move was promotional and undertaken in poor taste, given that the creation of the work caused the death of one of their compatriots. The festival has emphasized, however, that the premiere was only intended to honor the work and wishes of Hutchins, a past attendee of Camerimage who had privately told her collaborators that she hoped her work would one day screen there. Organizers also told The Hollywood Reporter that Baldwin was deliberately not invited, because of the distraction his presence at the event would likely generate.
The buzz on the ground in the early days of Camerimage this week — as guests shared rumored accounts of what festival figures who have seen the film have described — is that the movie’s cinematography is highly accomplished and a must-see.
“Halyna had a strong connection to this festival,” Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwa?a told THR ahead of the 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.”
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