On October 21, 2021, Halyna Hutchins, director of photography, lost her life on the set of the film Rust. Being the result of a series of negligent actions, her death was not insignificant, and the accident was easily avoidable under decent shooting conditions.
In November 2021, the Camerimage festival paid tribute to Halyna Hutchins by screening of one of the short films she photographed, Hidden. At the time, everyone was shocked by the story, which quickly spread around the world, even outside the small cinema industry network. Everyone agreed that the working conditions were unacceptable, that the production should not go on and that the film should certainly not see the light of day.
Tribute to Halyna Hutchins at Camerimage in 2021
Three years later, today, November 20, 2024, the film is being released for its world premiere at Camerimage, to “pay tribute to Halyna Hutchins”. By attending the screening, we would be contributing to the promotion of the film, not even knowing whether what we are seeing are Halyna’s cinematography or Bianca Cline’s, who took over as director of photography on the second half of the shoot. Nevertheless, Halyna’s family wanted the Rust screening to take place until recently. Probably because they wanted to pay tribute to her at all costs. Moreover, following an agreement, Halyna’s husband and their son will benefit financially from the film’s release. Halyna’s mother had wanted to come to Camerimage, but cancelled her visit because she disagreed, among other things, to the exploitation of her daughter’s death for the screening to happen.
Had the film not been completed, the festival would certainly not have paid tribute to Halyna 3 years after her death. Is this screening really a tribute, or just a pretext for distributing the film? A real tribute should have led to a retrospective of her work, on films for which she supervised the image throughout.
So today, let’s pay her a real tribute.
Halyna Hutchins
Photo credits : Vika Safrigina
Originally a journalist, Halyna changed careers and moved to the United States in 2006 to work in the film industry. After working in production for a few years, she set her sights on cinematography and ended up at the American Film Institute Conservatory, from which she graduated in 2015. Her graduation project, Hidden, was screened at several festivals, including Camerimage in 2016.
Hidden, 2015
She climbed quickly and, in 2018, found herself among the 8 female cinematographers participating in 21st Century Fox’s “DP Lab” program. In 2019, she was named one of the 10 “10 up-and-coming directors of photography who are making their mark” by the ASC.
As a union member, she supported strikes led by IATSE over working conditions shortly before her death. Today, she would certainly have supported the Women In Cinematography movement, which calls for a change in the current methods of film selection at Camerimage.
She loved going to Camerimage, it was her favorite event, one of her close friends confided to me. She still had many great projects ahead of her; most notably, a 65mm film shot in Ireland, for which production had begun and she was eager to resume after shooting Rust.
Untitled (in production)
To Halyna’s memory, whose tragic accident will at least serve, I hope, as a lesson to improve shooting conditions and to redouble our efforts when it comes to our own safety and that of others. To all those who have also lost their lives on set. We often say on films with poor working conditions: “we don’t save lives, let’s not rush things.” Let us allow ourselves to say “no” when asked to do dangerous things, let’s take the time to alert our team, and let’s remember all those accidents, fatal or not, and those technicians who didn’t deserve to lose their lives and who simply wanted to do their job.
Finally, here are a few images of Halyna Hutchins, who wasn’t lucky enough to shoot more.
Darlin’, 2019
The Secret of Joy, 2015
Snowbound, 2017
Good Bad Luck, 2023
The Providers, 2017
