At the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, Kristen Stewart introduced that her function directorial debut can be an adaptation of “The Chronology of Water,” the 2011 memoir by creator Lidia Yuknavitch. Since then, Stewart has been pounding the pavement to drum up financing for the mission. But regardless of her observe file of headlining among the most nicely regarded impartial movies of the final 10 years — from “Clouds of Sils Maria” to “Spencer” — and even if Imogen Poots is hooked up to star as Yuknavitch, and that Ridley Scott is producing by his manufacturing firm Scott Free, Stewart has been unable to safe the backing she wants to maneuver ahead.
This irritating expertise has pushed Stewart to make a stunning announcement about “The Chronology of Water” throughout her interview for Variety’s Jan. 11 cowl story.
“I’m going to make this film earlier than I ever work for another person,” she says, earlier than breaking into nervous laughter. “Yeah, I’ll give up the fucking enterprise. I received’t make a-fucking-nother film till I make this film. I’ll inform you that, for certain. I believe that can get issues going.”
The 33-year-old is starring in two function movies at this yr’s Sundance Film Festival, the pulpy lesbian crime thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” and the conceptual sci-fi romance “Love Me.” She’s additionally filmed a supporting function within the upcoming indie highway journey comedy “Sacramento,” costarring Michael Cera, Maya Erskine, and Michael Angarano, who’s making his directorial debut with the movie. But then her slate is evident, and she or he doesn’t intend to fill it till she will be able to get “The Chronology of Water” made.
Reaching that objective, nevertheless, has been “close to unattainable,” Stewart says. “The present local weather is an actual, capital N ‘No’ for something that has not been confirmed already.”
Stewart is aware of that one of many hurdles is that she desires to recreate Yuknavitch’s non-linear, stream-of-consciousness prose — meant to evoke the elusive tumult of reminiscence — as a cinematic expertise, whereas portraying how the creator’s private and sexual traumas fueled her alcohol abuse at the same time as she was striving to be a aggressive swimmer.
“I believe there’s a complete, yet-to-be-written feminine language,” Stewart says. “There’s a sure physicality to the kind of movie that I wish to make that I believe will probably be, in a slugline, actually unattractive to quote-unquote ‘patrons,’ however in motion, is completely pervasively transferring. That has simply not been a straightforward promote. It’s not concerning the plot. It’s about somebody self-Heimliching and contextualizing why that individual has swallowed their very own voice their complete life.”
Filmmaker Rose Glass, who directed Stewart in “Love Lies Bleeding,” has learn a model of the screenplay that Stewart wrote with Yuknavitch’s husband, Andy Mingo. “It’s actually fantastic,” she says. “I’m certain it will likely be a difficult one. It’s obtained some sharper photos and leans into some areas that make individuals uncomfortable — however in an attention-grabbing method.”
In her Variety cowl story, Stewart additionally discusses desirous to discover a wider spectrum of feminine expertise past the “heteronormative high quality” that she credit for enhancing her appearing profession, and she or he desires to deliver that to “The Chronology of Water.”
“There’s simply one thing concerning the open nature of our physicality, and I imply that vaginally — the movement, the bleeding,” Stewart says. “We can soak up a whole lot of negativity, and we will put out a whole lot of magnificence, and that’s what the film’s about. But it comes from this disgusting, bloody orifice, and we’ve negated the existence of it eternally, and it must be in discourse. It must be physicalized in motion pictures. It must be checked out, acknowledged. It must be fucking truthfully worshiped.”
In an business by which Greta Gerwig can gross $1.4 billion turning a plastic doll right into a treatise on feminism, one could count on that somebody would see the potential worth in serving to probably the most well-known and acclaimed actors of her era forge her personal psalm to womanhood. But that has not been Stewart’s expertise.
“I’ve by no means made a film earlier than, and so I lack expertise — and due to this fact, I lack credibility,” Stewart says, parroting the suggestions she retains getting. Stewart has directed earlier than: She premiered her quick movie “Come Swim” at Sundance in 2017, and she or he directed an prolonged music video in 2023 for the group Boygenius. But, she says, that hasn’t been sufficient. “They’re like, ‘I don’t know if she’s proper.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I’m! I’ve executed this eternally.’”
Glass agrees. “She’s clearly been doing this all her life, and you’ll really feel that when she’s on set. She’s very a lot one of many crew, actually,” she says. “I might’ve appreciated to assume that she discovered it straightforward to get funded, fucking hell. It’s ridiculous. Someone ought to make it.”
Despite all her setbacks, Stewart stays optimistic. She’s pretty sure she’ll find yourself making the movie in Europe, and she or he’s hopeful that her impending journey to Sundance — the place she plans to remain for the total pageant — will permit her to attach with filmmaking friends going through the identical points.
“I really feel like I may stroll by a wall proper now as a result of — I’m going to tip my hand, as a result of that’s what I do — I simply scouted this film, and I noticed locations, and folks, and faces, and places that opened themselves as much as me and didn’t have large no’s on them, and I used to be simply bawling the complete time,” Stewart says, clapping her fingers. “I can’t wait to go to fucking Sundance. I can’t wait to make my film.”
