Kristen Stewart was always ready to direct

CANNES, France (AP) — Kristen Stewart has been talking about directing as long as she’s been acting. Not many people encouraged it.

“I spoke to other actors when I was really little because I was always like: ‘I want to direct movies!’” Stewart recalls. “I was fully set down by several people who were like, ‘Why?’ and ‘No.’ It’s such a fallacy that you need to have an unbelievable tool kit or some kind of credential. It really is if you have something to say, then a movie can fall out of you very elegantly.”

You wouldn’t necessarily say that Stewart’s feature directing debut, “The Chronology of Water,” elegantly fell out of her at the Cannes Film Festival. She arrived in Cannes after a frantic rush to complete the film, an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir, starring Imogen Poots. Sitting on a balcony overlooking the Croisette, Stewart says she finished the film “30 seconds before I got on an airplane.”

“It was eight years in the making and then a really accelerated push. It’s an obvious comparison but it was childbirth,” says Stewart. “I was pregnant for a really long time and then I was screaming bloody murder.”

Yet however dramatic was the arrival of “The Chronology of Water,” it was emphatic. The film, an acutely impressionistic portrait of a brutal coming of age, is the evident work of an impassioned filmmaker. Stewart, the director, turns out to be a lot like Stewart, the actor: intensely sensitive, ferociously felt.

For Stewart, the accomplishment of “The Chronology of Water,” which is playing in the sidebar Un Certain Regard and is up for sale in Cannes, was also a revelation about the mythology of directing.

“It’s a such a male f------ thing,” she says. “It’s really not fair for people to think it’s hard to make a movie insofar as you need to know things before going into it. There are technical directors, but, Jesus Christ, you hire a crew. You just have a perspective and trust it.”

“My inexperience made this movie.”

Stewart’s first steps as a director came eight years ago with the short “Come Swim,” which she also premiered in Cannes, in 2017. The festival, she says, generates the kind of questions she likes around movies. It was around then that Stewart began adapting Yuknavitch's memoir.

In it, Yuknavitch recounts her life, starting with sexual abuse from her father (an architect played by Michael Epp in the film). Competitive swimming is one of her only escapes, and it helps get her away from home and into college. Blissful freedom, self-lacerating addiction and trauma color her years from there, as does an inspirational writing experience with Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi in the film). Stewart calls the book “a lifesaver — like, actually, a flotation device.”

“The book was this call to arms invitation to listen to your own voice, which, if you’re walking around in a girl body, is really hard to do,” says Stewart. “It fragments in a way that feels truer to my internal experience than anything I’ve ever read.”

“I really wanted to make something that wasn’t about what happened to this person, it’s about what she did with what happens to her, and what writing can do for you,” adds Stewart. “It’s like the most meta, crazy experience to have also cracked myself open at the same time.”

That goes for Poots, too, the 35-year-old British actor who, in “The Chronology of Water,” gives one of her finest, most wide-ranging performances.

“It’s Lydia’s life story and the cards that were dealt her, but in terms of the reactive nature, that’s the female experience,” says Poots. “How you’re surveilled, how you’re supposed to respond, conform, how that’s repulsive, and how you sabotage something good — all of these things are just very, very female.”

Together, Stewart and Poots have been clearly bonded by the experience. Stewart calls Poots “a sibling now.” In Stewart’s best experiences with directors, she says, it becomes such a back-and-forth exchange that the separate jobs disintegrate, and, she says, “You’re kind of sharing a body.”

“But I’m positive I said nothing useful to her ever, and I talked way too much,” says Stewart. Poots immediately disagrees: “That’s not true, Kristen!”

“Kristen is incredibly present but at the same has this ability, like a plant or something, to pick up on a slight shift in the atmosphere where it’s like: ‘Wait a minute,’” Poots says, causing Stewart to laugh. “There is this insane brain at play and it’s a skill set that comes in the form of an intense curiosity.”

That curiosity, now, includes directing more movies. “The Chronology of Water” may signal not just a new chapter for one of American movies’ most intrepid actors, but an ongoing artistic evolution.

“Our production was a shipwreck, so basically we had to put the boat back together,” Stewart says of the editing process. That reassembling, Stewart believes helped make “The Chronology of Water” something less predetermined, where “the emotional, neurological tissue that occurred between images was real.”

“There was no way to make this movie under more normal circumstances,” says Stewart, “because then it would have been more normal.”

Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He’s seeing approximately 40 films at this year’s festival and reporting on what stands out.

For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival.

Thora Birch, from left, Imogen Poots, director Kristen Stewart and Kim Gordon pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Kristen Stewart, left, and Imogen Poots pose for portrait photographs for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Kristen Stewart, left, and Imogen Poots pose for portrait photographs for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Director Kristen Stewart poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Kristen Stewart poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Bono: Stories of Surrender' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Thora Birch, from left, director Kristen Stewart, and Imogen Poots pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Director Kristen Stewart poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Kristen Stewart, left, and Imogen Poots pose for portrait photographs for the film 'The Chronology of Water' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Buffalo Bills fans arrived early and lingered long after the game ended to bid what could be farewell to their long-time home stadium filled with 53 years of memories — and often piles of snow.

After singing along together to The Killers' “Mr. Brightside” in the closing minutes of a 35-8 victory against the New York Jets, most everyone in the crowd of 70,944 remained in their seats to bask in the glow of fireworks as Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World” played over the stadium speakers.

Several players stopped in the end zone to watch a retrospective video, with the Buffalo-based Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” as the soundtrack while fans recorded selfie videos of the celebratory scene. Offensive lineman Alec Anderson even jumped into the crowd to pose for pictures before leaving the field.

With the Bills (12-5), the AFC's 6th seed, opening the playoffs at Jacksonville in the wild-card round next week, there's but a slim chance they'll play at their old home again. Next season, Buffalo is set to move into its new $1.2 billion facility being built across the street.

The farewell game evoked “a lifetime of memories,” said Therese Forton-Barnes, selected the team’s Fan of the Year, before the Bills kicked of their regular-season finale. “In our culture that we know and love, we can bond together from that experience. Our love for this team, our love for this city, have branched from those roots.”

Forton-Barnes, a past president of the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame, attended Bills games as a child at the old War Memorial Stadium in downtown Buffalo, colloquially known as “The Rockpile.” She has been a season ticket holder since Jim Kelly joined the Bills in 1986 at what was then Rich Stadium, later renamed for the team’s founding owner Ralph Wilson, and then corporate sponsors New Era and Highmark.

“I’ve been to over 350 games,” she said. “Today we’re here to cherish and celebrate the past, present and future. We have so many memories that you can’t erase at Rich Stadium, The Ralph, and now Highmark. Forever we will hold these memories when we move across the street.”

There was a celebratory mood to the day, with fans arriving early. Cars lined Abbott Road some 90 minutes before the stadium lots opened for a game the Bills rested most of their starters, with a brisk wind blowing in off of nearby Lake Erie and with temperatures dipping into the low 20s.

And most were in their seats when Bills owner Terry Pegula thanked fans and stadium workers in a pregame address.

With Buffalo leading 21-0 at halftime, many fans stayed in their seats as Kelly and fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Reed addressed them from the field, and the team played a video message from 100-year-old Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy.

“The fans have been unbelievable,” said Jack Hofstetter, a ticket-taker since the stadium opened in 1973 who was presented with Super Bowl tickets before Sunday’s game by Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. “I was a kid making 8 bucks a game back in those days. I got to see all the sports, ushering in the stadium and taking tickets later on. All the memories, it’s been fantastic.”

Bud Light commemorated the stadium finale and Bills fan culture with the release of a special-edition beer brewed with melted snow shoveled out of the stadium earlier this season.

In what has become a winter tradition at the stadium, fans were hired to clear the stands after a lake-effect storm dropped more than a foot of snow on the region this week.

The few remaining shovelers were still present clearing the pathways and end zone stands of snow some five hours before kickoff. The new stadium won’t require as many shovelers, with the field heated and with more than two-thirds of the 60,000-plus seats covered by a curved roof overhang.

Fears of fans rushing the field were abated with large contingent of security personnel and backed by New York State troopers began lining the field during the final 2-minute warning.

Fans stayed in the stands, singing along to the music, with many lingering to take one last glimpse inside the stadium where the scoreboard broadcast one last message:

“Thank You, Bills Mafia.”

AP Sports Writer John Wawrow contributed.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Fans watch a ceremony after the Buffalo Bills beat the New York Jets in the Bills' final regular-season NFL football home game in Highmark Stadium Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Buffalo Bills cornerback Tre'Davious White (27) remains on the field to watch a tribute video after the Bills beat the New York Jets in the Bills' final regular-season NFL football home game in Highmark Stadium Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y.(AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Fans watch a ceremony after the Buffalo Bills beat the New York Jets in the Bills' final regular-season NFL football home game in Highmark Stadium Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Fans celebrate after the Buffalo Bills scored a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the New York Jets, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Fans celebrate and throw snow in the stands after an NFL football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Aga Deters, right, and her husband Fred Deters, walk near Highmark Stadium before an NFL football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Michael Wygant shoves snow from a tunnel before an NFL football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets at Highmark Stadium, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Alec Anderson (70) spikes the ball after running back Ty Johnson scored a touchdown against the New York Jets in the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

FILE - The existing Highmark Stadium, foreground, frames the construction on the new Highmark Stadium, upper right, which is scheduled to open with the 2026 season, shown before an NFL football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, Oct. 5, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Salt crew member Jim Earl sprinkles salt in the upper deck before an NFL football game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets at Highmark Stadium, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)