A young woman fights her way free from self-destruction and finds her voice in words and water. Kristen Stewart’s long-awaited directorial debut is an intense dive into the poetic memoirs of writer Lidia Yuknavitch.

Drowned in memories, reborn in words. In her long-awaited directorial debut, Kristen Stewart brings Lidia Yuknavitch’s raw, poetic memoirs to the big screen. Thanks to a sports scholarship, the talented swimmer Lidia (Imogen Poots) manages to escape her violent childhood, but her past continues to haunt her. The film follows her descent into self-destruction—in sex, alcohol, drugs, and rage—and her difficult journey back, in which she learns to transform her trauma into art. The Chronology of Water is an uncompromising, sensory, and profoundly affecting film, dreamily captured on 16mm.