Even Kristen Stewart Had Trouble Getting Her First Feature Financed

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In the year 2018, during the Cannes Film Festival, Kristen Stewart participated alongside Ava DuVernay, Agnes Varda, Jane Fonda, and approximately 80 other women in a demonstration on the Palais steps to highlight the scarcity of female directors featured in the festival’s schedule. Remarkably, just three out of the total 21 competition films that year were helmed by women directors.

Seven years have passed, and Stewart has returned to the festival with her directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water.” However, the path wasn’t smooth sailing. “We needed to depart from the U.S. to make this happen,” Stewart shared about securing funding for the film.

On May 16th, Stewart participated in a chat with Kim Gordon, an actor and musician from Chronolgy, at Hyde Beach by Campari’s event organized by Breaking Through Lens. This non-profit organization aims to aid filmmakers facing gender marginalization by helping them secure funding for their projects. During the gathering, Lauren Melinda, founder of Simbelle Productions, unveiled the Simbelle Impact Award. This is a $10,000 unrestricted grant that will be given to one finalist from the next round of Breaking Through Lens grants, whose project demonstrates both social impact and artistic clarity.

Even though Stewart is a major figure in Hollywood, they had to travel to Europe to produce the movie “Chronology”. This film is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir with the same title. The story revolves around a once-ambitious Olympic swimmer who loses her scholarship and grapples with addiction, all while exploring her own sexuality and developing a passion for literature.

Stewart acknowledged it wasn’t fitting for her to portray Yuknavitch, and her decision not to appear in the initial production made securing funding significantly harder. She expressed her bafflement over the actors capable of financing films within the entertainment industry, stating, “The roster of actors, male and female, who can finance a movie is beyond my comprehension. They shift so rapidly, and I don’t grasp them at all.” In the end, Stewart selected Imogen Poots to star in the film.

Stewart delivered a speech mere hours prior to the movie’s premiere on May 16th, within the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. However, this year’s event only includes seven films directed by women out of its total twenty-two competition entries, significantly falling short of gender equality.

Regarding her aspirations to direct in the future, Stewart expressed, “It’s a dream of mine to both act and direct in a project. I plan to do it soon, fingers crossed.” For the present, she is thrilled to witness the screening of her film “Chronology“. She remarked, “I feel like I’m watching my child take their first steps in kindergarten, exclaiming, ‘Look at her go!’

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2025-05-18 12:24