Kristen Stewart directing “The Chronology of Water” might’ve sounded like a Sundance fever dream, but here we are, and the actress-turned-director is aiming for a Cannes premiere.
Yesterday, I mentioned a handful of titles still aiming for Cannes competition, and ‘Chronology of Water’ wasn’t mentioned; that’s because it’s not going to be in competition, but might still appear somewhere in the Cannes selection.
Part of the delay has to do with Cannes, who have seen the film, asking Stewart to trim the runtime a bit. She’s agreed to the demands, and might get an answer on Monday. Cannes late additions are, for the time being, supposed to be announced on Tuesday, April 22.
Based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s cult-favorite memoir, the project has been percolating in the Hollywood underground for nearly a decade, passed around like some radioactive art object too volatile for the prestige crowd to handle.
Enter Stewart, fresh off her post-Twilight indie renaissance and armed with auteurist aspirations no one saw coming. Stewart co-wrote the screenplay herself (with Yuknavitch’s blessing), and the project found a home with Ridley Scott’s indie-minded Scott Free banner—yes, that Ridley Scott.
Stewart, reportedly, was unwavering in her vision—she wanted it messy, intimate, experimental, and unflinching. No polish. No Oscar bait. Imogen Poots, ever the underrated actress, signed on to play Lidia, and with that, the project finally had a heartbeat.
We’ll see if Stewart gets her dream to premiere the film at Cannes — she skipped Sundance for this very reason. It should be noted that Stewart’s fellow actress, Scarlett Johansson, was already accepted in the Un Certain Regard sidebar for her directorial debut “Eleanor the Great.”