Kristen Stewart, among the numerous projects she takes on both large and small, has found a niche portraying high-profile, controversial real-life women. Following on her biopics Seberg, in which she played FBI-targeted actress Jean Seberg, and Spencer, in which she played Princess Diana, Stewart will take on intellectual writer Susan Sontag in Kirsten Johnson‘s next film.
Sontag is the latest film from Johnson, a documentarian known for 2016’s Cameraperson and 2020’s Dick Johnson is Dead. With this latest film, she’ll adapt from Ben Moser‘s 2019 biography Sontag: Her Life, co-writing with Lisa Kron. Sontag was an essayist known for tackling a broad range of subjects, including photography, war, the AIDS crisis, and more, courting controversy throughout her career.
This is a change of pace for Johnson, crafting a narrative drama but using documentary techniques…
“We’re using Berlin as a moment to kick off the project and do documentary footage of Kristen as the head of the jury and talking to her about how she’s going to become Sontag,” said Gabrielle Tana, who co-founded Brouhaha Entertainment and is producer on the project. “It will be a drama, but with a documentary aspect to it. Kirsten has a wonderful approach to storytelling, and this is reflective of that, so she will use documentary in it.”
Stewart has multiple projects coming up, including her directorial debut The Chronology of Water. Pairing up with Johnson should prove interesting because the latter is anything but a traditional filmmaker. Perhaps Stewart will pick up a few tricks for her own turn behind the camera? [Variety via ScreenDaily]
