It’s been a labor of love for the writer-director, whose 2014 Kickstarter campaign first introduced the idea of a Didion-centric documentary. Three years ago, Dunne spoke with Vogue —coincidentally, his aunt's first writing gig—and referred to the project as “a heady responsibility that I want to get right.” For a woman who once championed keeping a notebook and how “we tell ourselves stories in order to live,” a tribute to her own story seems only fitting.





Beyond exploring Didion’s body of work, The Center Will Not Hold promises glimpses into the writer’s personal life: parties with Steven Spielberg, conversations with Jim Morrison, her marriage to John Dunne, and the loss of her daughter, Quintana Roo. Of course, no Didion film could be complete without footage of California—a place so essential to the Didion canon that the two seem inherently intertwined.

Didion is a household name in the literary and journalism world. She is the author of five novels (one of which has been adapted into a motion picture), in addition to penning acclaimed nonfiction—including Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album. Her memoirs, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, are bestselling meditations on grief and healing, as Didion mourned the deaths of her husband and daughter. Her latest book, South and West, is a collection of journal entries written while covering the Patty Hearst trial for Rolling Stone.

Related: On Joan Didion: Her Books, Life, and Legacy