On the heels of collaborating with David Cronenberg and Olivier Assayas last year, Kristen Stewart has found a new project. It’s quite an enticing amalgamation of talent: Cameraperson and Dick Johnson is Dead director Kirsten Johnson will direct Stewart in the tentatively titled Sontag, in which the actress will play the legendary Susan Sontag.
Screen Daily has the first details on the project, which will actually begin shooting at the Berlin International Film Festival this month, where Stewart is president of the international jury. As one might expect from Johnson, the project will not take the form of a standard biopic, rather capturing four chapters in the writer, philosopher, and activist’s life. Based on Ben Moser’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Sontag: Her Life and co-written by Johnson and Lisa Kron, the film is backed by Brouhaha Entertainment.
“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 producer Gabrielle Tana. “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.”
Shooting will also take place across California, New York, Paris, and Sarajevo this year, so don’t expect a festival premiere until 2024. As we await more details, check out an interview with Sontag from 2000, four years before she passed away.