Kristen Stewart announced at the beginning of 2024 that she was quitting acting until she got her long-gestated feature directorial debut The Chronology of Water over the line.

The actress and director has achieved her ambition with a first image released today showing her on the set directing Imogen Poots in the lead role.

The movie is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s best-selling 2011 memoir of the same name, with Stewart taking screenplay co-writing credits with Andy Mingo.

A tale of turning trauma into art, the personal story follows protagonist Lidia from her earliest childhood memories in the Pacific Northwest, through explosive misfires and mistakes, children that almost-were, toxic relationships, art heroes, wins and losses.

Drifting in the water of Lidia’s memories, the film follows her journey to becoming a professional writer and repossessing her story by writing one she can live with. The film is billed as “an in-depth exploration of sexuality, of creativity, an unflinching stare at all the gory details of having a female body and a sensitive depiction of the emotional vocabulary of youth.”

Poots, who plays Lidia, is joined in the cast by Thora Birch, Earl Cave, Michael Epp, Susannah Flood, Kim Gordon and Jim Belushi.

The film shot in Latvia and Malta over six weeks in June and July.

The film is produced by Charles Gillibert (CG Cinema International); Yulia Zayceva, Max Pavlov and Svetlana Punte (Forma Pro Films); Michael Pruss and Rebecca Feuer (Scott Free); and Stewart, Maggie McLean and Dylan Meyer (Nevermind Pictures) and Mingo.

The production has been made in association with Scott Aharoni, Alihan Yalcindag, and Sinan Eczacibasi for Curious Gremlin; Christian Vesper for Fremantle; Yan Vizinberg, Abigail Honor and Chris Cooper for Lorem Ipsum Entertainment; Mélanie Biessy for Scala Films.

WME Independent is handling North American sales. Les Films du Losange will handle international sales and French distribution. 

The Chronology of Water follows Stewart’s three short films as director: Come Swim which premiered at Sundance, Crickets, part Netflix’s pandemic series Homemade and Boygenius – The Film.

Stewart is repped by WME. Poots is repped by WME, Entertainment 360 and B-Side Management.

Production Designer: Jen Dunlap

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