Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water is a non-linear interpretation of the award-winning author Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir. Imogen Poots plays Lidia with a brave, fierce, and fully embodied performance that chronicles the struggles and triumphs of Lidia through her abusive childhood, her addictions, her love of swimming, her friendship with Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi), her relationship with women including author and iconoclast Kathy Acker (unnamed but played by Kim Gordon) and her three marriages. It’s a frank and confronting film, but ultimately one of the power of words and expression to put the pain somewhere else.
Nadine Whitney had the opportunity to speak with Kristen and Imogen.
The Chronology of Water screens at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival on 12 & 14 July 2026. Tickets are available here:
Hi Kristen. I'll start right away with the opening line which is, “Memories are stories so you better come up with one you can live with.” When you were working with Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoirs how much of your creating the visual story merged with the memoirs?
Kristen Stewart: It's actually interesting that you picked that one line because it's not in the book there were a couple of pages in the very beginning that say that exact thing just in more words and we just didn't have time for that. So, it's like, “So you better come up with something you can live with,” that's just a sort of summary of the first chapter and we present this central metaphor at the very beginning before you really understand what you're dealing with.
You have a sense of loss, you have a sense of kind of uncontrolled seeping, and you want to put that blood back in her body. Lidia does describe immediately that this experience that we're about to receive is a gift from her. It feels literary right off the bat and it's chaotic and nonlinear and fractured, but that does speak to what writing can do for you which is organise your thoughts and your feelings to a place where you can use them as support systems and not have the things that happened to you take you down.
Imogen, Lidia is a transformative role for you playing her from a teenager to a mother in her forties. Can you tell me about the trust that you had to build up with Kristen to get to some of the more extreme places?
Imogen Poots: I think from the immediate moment we met one another it was like, “Oh we should have known each other before, this is so strange that it took so long for that to happen.” I think the collaboration and the friendship that came from making this film only cemented the fact that we are both onto something: we're not wrong, we're not abnormal, we’re not incorrect.
There's a great power that comes from that. In terms of sort of trusting in that way, no one in my life has made me feel beautiful before Kristen. No one has ever seen me that way, or no one has ever given that opportunity before as an actor to do something like this. It’s the huge reward of having been authentic to something and then you meet someone in life, and everything makes sense. It’s a very special specific thing so in terms of them making the film together, it was just like let's go we're both ready to do this we both got each other’s backs were incredibly honest with one another we don't really have egos when it comes to one another.
With each other were incredibly truthful, always. Kristen notices everything and so because of that you can't fail. You’re just throwing paint at a canvas and Kristen is standing right there covered and colours and with you. I think I'm with a film like this I never even considered for a moment, “Do I trust?” We're both very present with what we had to do you know because we didn't have long.
It's an extraordinary film. I watched it for the second time recently. I have seen it on the big screen thing where it is overwhelmingly beautiful, terrifying, feminist, and freeing. I just have to say thank you for your work. It is transcendent.
Kristen Stewart: Thank you. I mean we’re gonna cry. The film wouldn't exist without you. I'm so happy to have these relationships. I'm so happy that the movie has relationships and that you are a friend of it. Thank you very much.
Director: Kristen Stewart
Writers: Lidia Yuknavitch, Kristen Stewart
Cast: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Earl Cave, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge, Esmé Creed-Miles
Cinematography: Corey C. Waters
Editor: Olivia Neergaard-Holm