Kristen Stewart has described President Donald Trump’s effect on the film industry as “terrifying” and said that “we should expect the worst”.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter as her feature directing debut The Chronology of Water screened at the Cannes film festival, Stewart said: “We’re living in a world that’s folding in on itself by the split second … we’re all looking over our shoulders going: ‘Holy shit.’ The slippage is just terrifying.”

Stewart was asked about the effect of Trump’s proposed film industry tariffs, saying: “We discuss this every day, like, what’s gonna happen? [Especially] now that we’ve finally found our voices … Not that it wasn’t treacherous before but now, [it is] in a way that is so literal, so strikingly essential and vital, but naturally terrifying. [Trump’s] shadow is bleak and very dark … we should expect the worst and fight for the best.”

The Chronology of Water stars Imogen Poots, Thora Birch and Earl Cave, and was adapted from the 2011 memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch, who was abused by her father as a child and thenwho won a swimming scholarship to college before going off the rails.

Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian’s chief film critic, gave the film a positive review, describing it as “a poetry-slam of pain and autobiographical outrage, recounting a writer’s journey towards recovering the raw material of experience to be sifted and recycled into literary success”. Bradshaw also said the film was “an earnest and heartfelt piece of work, and Stewart has guided strong, intelligent performances”.

Stewart told the Hollywood Reporter that her attraction to the story was instant, saying: “It was just a book that I read and impulsively, after 40 pages, put down and reached out to the writer. I just went: ‘We need to put this on its feet so we can do it all together.’ I just hadn’t read anything like that until then.”

The Chronology of Water screened in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, for which it had been selected along with films directed by fellow actors Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson. Stewart added: “It’s just about finding voice. I’m just uniquely primed at this stage in my life to listen to myself, so therefore I think I need to step behind the camera but not ignore the fact that what put me here was being in front of it.”

Stewart also said that it she had to struggle with industry gatekeepers to get the film made. In a panel conversation reported by Variety she said: “There’s this bullshit fallacy that you need to have experience or sort of like technical adeptness, and it’s safeguarding the business. It’s a real male perspective ... Anyone can make a movie if they have something to say.”

Stewart also expressed positivity about the current political situation. “It’s an exciting time to be alive. And it’s cool that we all get to be loud together. But at the same time, is that going to do anything? What’s gonna happen?”