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For Kiran Rao, Mumbai is not merely the setting of her Lust Stories film. It is almost a character in itself.
In a recent conversation with THR India, Rao explained how the city’s landscape became integral to the story of two young people who have come to the city to hustle, make a living and build a life for themselves. Their experiences allowed her to revisit parts of the city that have rarely been explored on screen.
The film takes audiences to locations including Worli Village and Sassoon Docks, spaces that Rao felt could capture both the beauty and difficulty of life in the city.
“There are places where you can go for free and you see this huge skyline of Bombay,” she said. “But then you see that where you have to live is still through these lanes.”
That contrast became central to how Rao approached the film. Mumbai offers enormous possibilities, but access to those possibilities is not equally distributed. The characters can look out at the city and imagine a different life, while simultaneously navigating the cramped spaces and everyday realities that come with trying to survive in it.
For Rao, the cityscape gave the characters’ hustle a deeper meaning. Their ambition was not simply an abstract quality of their personalities. It was connected to the physical environment around them and the reality of trying to find a place in one of India’s most crowded cities.
The experience also brought back memories of her debut film Dhobi Ghat (2010), which similarly used Mumbai as a canvas for intersecting lives and desires. Rao acknowledged the connection, noting how little the city has changed in certain ways since she made the film.
If anything, she observed, Mumbai has become even more crowded and difficult to shoot in. Yet, that density is precisely what makes a compelling cinematic space.“The city is packed with people and their desires, you know, pushed against each other 24/7,” she observed.
For Rao, Mumbai and its contradictions make for more than a backdrop. It becomes the perfect canvas for a story about desire.
“It’s a city of desire,” she said. “It’s a city of all kinds of lust.”
Watch the full conversation on The Hollywood Reporter India's YouTube channel at 8 pm tonight.