Sep 19, 2026 8:00pm IST
Kiran Rao On Directing ‘Lust Stories 3’: ‘Let’s Explore Lust Without Any Judgment’ (EXCLUSIVE)
For Kiran Rao, bringing a female gaze to “Lust Stories 3” was less about consciously defining a visual language and more about the kind of women she wants to put on screen. Rao has directed a short story with Gurfateh Pirzada and newcomer Sana Thampi as part of the Netflix anthology and is the only woman director in season 3. The other directors in the latest season of “Lust Stories” are all men - Shakun Batra, Vishal Bhardwaj, and Vikramaditya Motwane.
The filmmaker says her approach comes from creating female characters who have agency, ambition and an identity beyond the gaze of others. “I feel like my woman should have agency, should be a well-rounded character and should definitely be interesting to watch,” Rao says, explaining how her perspective differs from the traditional male gaze in cinema.
Rao also points out that the men directing the anthology do not necessarily fit the conventional definition of the male gaze. “I feel like all these men (male directors of Lust Stories 3 ) don’t have the typical male gaze. They are all fairly evolved men and humans,” she says.
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For her own segment, however, Rao wanted to center a woman who is confident in herself and unapologetic about her ambitions. “The idea was to have somebody who is very confident in her body, in herself as an individual, who’s independent, who is ambitious and is unapologetic about it,” she says.
Ultimately, Rao sees her perspective as naturally shaped by both her identity as a woman and her role as a filmmaker. “I am a woman and I am a director. So I guess I do have a female gaze,” she says.
That gaze also extends to how desire is presented on screen, which includes making sure the audience gets something to enjoy visually. “I have got a thirst trap and I have made sure that the girls have something very hot to look at,” Rao says. “I have taken care that the girls and the guys have something nice to look at and even the boys do because she’s (Sana Thampi) absolutely gorgeous.”
But beyond the visual appeal, Rao says she was interested in exploring lust through characters who don’t necessarily conform to conventional moral frameworks. Rather than imposing a particular theme or message, she wanted to follow two individuals whose choices exist in morally ambiguous territory.
“It was fun to not have a particular theme or issue, but like really drive as two individuals who have this kind of morally ambiguous take on things,” she says. “They’re like hustling and just doing whatever they want to do.”
For Rao, that becomes the larger appeal of exploring lust in the anthology, which meant allowing desire to exist. “I think it was fun to explore lust in that context without any judgment or morality attached to it,” she says.
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