Los Angeles, May 17: Hollywood star Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut “The Chronology of Water” premiered at Cannes Film Festival and earned a four-minute standing ovation. Imogen Poots’ performance was certainly a highlight of Stewart’s adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name. Poots stars as Yuknavitch in Stewart’s non-linear take on the bestselling writer’s life, which includes shocking scenes of sexual abuse by her father and her spiral into drug use juxtaposed with the poetic salvation she found from being in water.

Kristen Stewart Gets Standing Ovation

 

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Stewart hugged everyone in the cast and crew and directed the attention toward them. After kissing her wife Dylan Meyer, she allowed the spotlight to shine on her, accepting the mic from Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux for a short speech. “This is an absolutely insane, surreal experience to be able to be here and watch this with all of you guys. We finished the movie like five minutes ago, it’s not even finished yet. We just slipped under this fucking shut door and goddamn it thank you,” Stewart said to Fremaux, before literally leaping into his arms. Cannes 2025: Anupam Kher Meets With Hollywood Actor and Friend Robert De Niro at 78th Cannes Film Festival (See Pics).

The long-in-the-works passion project world premiered in the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar, which this year also features debuts from fellow actors such as Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson. In addition to directing, Stewart co-wrote the film’s screenplay alongside Yuknavitch’s husband, Andy Mingo, reports variety.com. Stewart first announced the development of “Chronology of Water” in 2018.

In her cover story for variety.com in January 2024, Stewart shared that she had been struggling to finance the movie and would refuse to act in another film until she was able to get “The Chronology of Water” finished. She was able to do just that in summer 2024, when the movie filmed for six weeks in Latvia and Malta. The cast also includes Thora Birch, Earl Cave, Michael Epp, Susannah Flood, Kim Gordon and Jim Belushi. Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Trolled for Standing Ovation at Cannes 2025, Netizens Compare It to ‘Joker 2’ Response.

Stewart was honest about her struggles to get the film financed. She said it was “near impossible” to raise money for a movie that was an original idea and not based on a proven genre or pre-existing IP. “I think there’s an entire, yet-to-be-written female language,” Stewart said. “There’s a certain physicality to the type of film that I want to make that I think will be, in a slugline, really unattractive to quote-unquote ‘buyers,’ but in action, is entirely pervasively moving. That has just not been an easy sell. It’s not about the plot. It’s about someone self-Heimliching and contextualizing why that person has swallowed their own voice their whole life.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 17, 2025 10:56 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).