Since establishing herself as a star with her performances opposite Robert Pattinson in the Twilight saga, Kristen Stewart — like her co-lead in said teen vampire movies — has gone on to carve out a seriously impressive filmography. And now, having collaborated with some of cinema's most celebrated filmmakers — from Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women) and Olivier Assayas (Clouds Of Sils Marina) to Pablo Larraín (Spencer) and David Cronenberg (Crimes Of The Future) — KStew is about to make her own directorial debut with The Chronology Of Water. Adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir, Stewart's film stars Imogen Poots as Yuknavitch, following the once promising young swimmer as she wrestles with various traumas and addictions on the path to finding her new calling as a writer. Check out the freshly released first trailer for the film below;
Eight years in the making, it looks like The Chronology Of Water will prove to have been worth the wait for its director. Combining an intimate 16mm aesthetic with a fragmented narrative approach, Stewart's feature bow — if this first trailer is anything to go by — seems like an artistically bold, emotionally vulnerable opening gambit for the actor-turned-filmmaker, well placed to execute on the "unflinching portrait of survival, sexuality, and self-invention" promised by both its marketing material and its source text. And for Poots, last seen starring opposite Brett Goldstein in Apple TV's lo-fi romance All Of You, The Chronology Of Water represents a real chance to flex her considerable dramatic chops, too.
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The official synopsis for the movie reads as follows: "The film traces Lidia’s life from her earliest memories in the Pacific Northwest, as a promising swimmer, through fractured relationships, near-motherhood, addiction, and encounters with artistic heroes. Told as a fluid memory wash, the story transforms trauma into art, embodying Yuknavitch’s defiant voice that made her work a modern cult classic. It is not only a chronicle of a woman becoming a writer, but a visceral journey through the wreckage and resilience of a life lived against the grain."
Among the ensemble featuring here alongside Poots are Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge, and Earl Cave. And we can look forward to seeing whether Kristen Stewart makes waves with The Chronology Of Water when her directorial debut washes into cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 6 February, 2026.