Kristen Stewart says stepping behind the camera for the first time changed how she sees herself and the filmmaking world.
The Love Lies Bleeding actress, 35, who’s making her directorial debut with The Chronology of Water, reflected on that milestone ahead of her keynote speech at the Academy and Chanel’s Women’s Luncheon on November 4 in Los Angeles.
“I learned that there are emotions that can diminish the point in environments that are not conducive to listening to women,” Stewart told PEOPLE of the powerful lesson directing taught her.
“It’s okay to be emotional, and it’s fun to be angry when you can turn it into something productive and beautiful.”
She added that collaboration and trust are at the heart of her creative process. “You can’t make a movie alone, and when you find the right people to do it with, everything’s okay,” she said.
Stewart’s film adapts The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir exploring grief, trauma, addiction, and sexuality through a woman’s perspective.
During her keynote address, Stewart spoke candidly about her frustration with the lack of progress for women in Hollywood since the height of the #MeToo movement.
“In a post-Me Too moment, it seemed possible that stories made by and for women were finally getting their due,” she told the audience. “But the backsliding from that brief moment of progress is statistically devastating.”
She also called out the gender disparity in filmmaking as a “state of emergency,” thanking the room full of female filmmakers and actors, including Kate Hudson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Riley Keough, Felicity Jones, Tessa Thompson, and Patty Jenkins.
“I am not grateful to a boys’ club business model that pretends to want to hang out with us while siphoning our resources and belittling our true perspectives.”
The annual luncheon celebrates women across the film industry and the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women, which supports emerging female filmmakers.
