CANNES, France (AP) 鈥 Kristen Stewart has been talking about directing as long as she鈥檚 been acting. Not many people encouraged it.
鈥淚 spoke to other actors when I was really little because I was always like: 鈥業 want to direct movies!鈥欌 Stewart recalls. 鈥淚 was fully set down by several people who were like, 鈥榃hy?鈥 and 鈥楴o.鈥 It鈥檚 such a fallacy that you need to have an unbelievable tool kit or some kind of credential. It really is if you have something to say, then a movie can fall out of you very elegantly.鈥
You wouldn鈥檛 necessarily say that Stewart鈥檚 feature directing debut, 鈥淭he Chronology of Water,鈥 elegantly fell out of her at the . She arrived in Cannes after a frantic rush to complete the film, an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch鈥檚 2011 memoir, starring Imogen Poots. Sitting on a balcony overlooking the Croisette, Stewart says she finished the film 鈥30 seconds before I got on an airplane.鈥
鈥淚t was eight years in the making and then a really accelerated push. It鈥檚 an obvious comparison but it was childbirth,鈥 says Stewart. 鈥淚 was pregnant for a really long time and then I was screaming bloody murder.鈥
Yet however dramatic was the arrival of 鈥淭he Chronology of Water,鈥 it was emphatic. The film, an acutely impressionistic portrait of a brutal coming of age, is the evident work of an impassioned filmmaker. Stewart, the director, turns out to be a lot like Stewart, the actor: intensely sensitive, ferociously felt.
For Stewart, the accomplishment of 鈥淭he Chronology of Water,鈥 which is playing in the sidebar Un Certain Regard and is up for sale in Cannes, was also a revelation about the mythology of directing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a such a male f——— thing,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really not fair for people to think it鈥檚 hard to make a movie insofar as you need to know things before going into it. There are technical directors, but, Jesus Christ, you hire a crew. You just have a perspective and trust it.鈥
鈥淢y inexperience made this movie.鈥
Stewart鈥檚 first steps as a director came eight years ago with the short which she also premiered in Cannes, in 2017. The festival, she says, generates the kind of questions she likes around movies. It was around then that Stewart began adapting Yuknavitch’s memoir.
In it, Yuknavitch recounts her life, starting with sexual abuse from her father (an architect played by Michael Epp in the film). Competitive swimming is one of her only escapes, and it helps get her away from home and into college. Blissful freedom, self-lacerating addiction and trauma color her years from there, as does an inspirational writing experience with Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi in the film). Stewart calls the book 鈥渁 lifesaver 鈥 like, actually, a flotation device.鈥
鈥淭he book was this call to arms invitation to listen to your own voice, which, if you鈥檙e walking around in a girl body, is really hard to do,鈥 says Stewart. 鈥淚t fragments in a way that feels truer to my internal experience than anything I鈥檝e ever read.鈥
鈥淚 really wanted to make something that wasn鈥檛 about what happened to this person, it鈥檚 about what she did with what happens to her, and what writing can do for you,鈥 adds Stewart. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like the most meta, crazy experience to have also cracked myself open at the same time.鈥
That goes for Poots, too, the 35-year-old British actor who, in 鈥淭he Chronology of Water,鈥 gives one of her finest, most wide-ranging performances.
鈥淚t鈥檚 Lydia鈥檚 life story and the cards that were dealt her, but in terms of the reactive nature, that鈥檚 the female experience,鈥 says Poots. 鈥淗ow you鈥檙e surveilled, how you鈥檙e supposed to respond, conform, how that鈥檚 repulsive, and how you sabotage something good 鈥 all of these things are just very, very female.鈥
Together, Stewart and Poots have been clearly bonded by the experience. Stewart calls Poots 鈥渁 sibling now.鈥 In Stewart鈥檚 best experiences with directors, she says, it becomes such a back-and-forth exchange that the separate jobs disintegrate, and, she says, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e kind of sharing a body.鈥
鈥淏ut I鈥檓 positive I said nothing useful to her ever, and I talked way too much,鈥 says Stewart. Poots immediately disagrees: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not true, Kristen!鈥
鈥淜risten is incredibly present but at the same has this ability, like a plant or something, to pick up on a slight shift in the atmosphere where it鈥檚 like: 鈥榃ait a minute,鈥欌 Poots says, causing Stewart to laugh. 鈥淭here is this insane brain at play and it鈥檚 a skill set that comes in the form of an intense curiosity.鈥
That curiosity, now, includes directing more movies. 鈥淭he Chronology of Water鈥 may signal not just a new chapter for one of American movies鈥 most intrepid actors, but an ongoing artistic evolution.
鈥淥ur production was a shipwreck, so basically we had to put the boat back together,鈥 Stewart says of the editing process. That reassembling, Stewart believes helped make 鈥淭he Chronology of Water鈥 something less predetermined, where 鈥渢he emotional, neurological tissue that occurred between images was real.鈥
鈥淭here was no way to make this movie under more normal circumstances,鈥 says Stewart, 鈥渂ecause then it would have been more normal.鈥
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Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He鈥檚 seeing approximately 40 films at this year鈥檚 festival and
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For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit .
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