By Serena Solomon, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN -- The Tribeca Film Festival has pulled the rug out from under "First Winter," cancelling the movie's red carpet premiere hours after DNAinfo revealed a real deer was shot, skinned and eaten for the film.
Brooklyn filmmaker Ben Dickson, whose post-apocalyptic hipster survival flick will now debut Thursday without a lavish red carpet, could be in hot water with state authorities after an actor shot a pair of live deer without a license as part of the movie.
The film's publicist said the cancellation was due to logistics, noting that the festival, which kicks off Wednesday, utilizes multiple venues around the city for hundreds of screenings.
"The festival cancels many red carpets," said the film's publicist, Jenny Lawhorn.
A festival source said the red carpet event, like many others, was cancelled because of a clash over staffing and timing.
Currently, four out of the five showings for the film at the festival have been listed as "rush tickets" only, meaning advance sales have reached capacity. Rush tickets go on sale at the venue approximately 45 minutes prior to the scheduled screening of a movie.
Festival spokesman Robert Lawson said, “We notified the film publicists last week that we were planning on cancelling the red carpet for this event. The festival has multiple premieres each night and arranges red carpet arrivals for events based on where media interest is the strongest.”
In "First Winter," the deer kill -- done on a private farm in the Hudson Valley -- was part of a 23-day film shoot for Dickson's feature about naive Brooklyn hipsters learning to survive in the wild after an apocalyptic event.
Dickson admitted the rifle used was unlicensed, and the deer -- one was killed and another wounded -- were shot out of season.