DIFF 2025 : Kuchar Review | An Unconventional Exploration Of Female Desire Sans Shame

Vaidaangi Sharma’s debut short Kuchar (The Itch, 2025) deals with a teenage girl and a mother’s journey of meeting in the middle—to unravel the shame tied to desire and womanhood. The film screened at the Dharamshala International Film Festival as part of the shorts programme 9 on November 1. Alok (Umar Sharif) and Priya (Neha Vyaso) are parents to daughters Chanda (Subhashree Sahoo) and Tara (Saisha Salvi). As Chanda celebrates her birthday, she recounts the many factors that keep her from truly being aware of her body and desires like the other teenagers who have phones and access to the internet.

As she trudges through her already-ruined birthday, burdened with yet another unwanted gift—a “Kitan” watch—she sulks, only to stumble upon an unexpected delight: the thrill of sitting atop a running washing machine. The world around her blurs into a soft haze, like a fogged-up window, as waves of heat ripple through her body. Sahoo masterfully conveys the bewildering, uncharted terrain of newfound pleasure through the eloquence of her eyes.

The rite of passage that a teenager follows to knowingly or unknowingly discover what they truly like could easily have been an uncomfortable topic to portray on screen. However, Sharma’s directorial command lends the film a gaze that holds unconventional empathy for its protagonists. Even a little shame that watching this film can elicit is a mirror to what women have always been conditioned to feel about pleasure. Kuchar is a nod to all girls who grew up with Wattpad or erotic literature as the only source of adult entertainment in an online culture infested with male-pleasure centred pornography. 

The closest parallel that comes to mind in recent cinema is Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) from Girls Will Be Girls (2024), who, too, explores self-pleasure with disarming realism. The makeshift tools may appear humorous on the surface, yet they poignantly reflect how desire compels women to become inventive—finding pleasure in objects never meant to be erotic, like the paintbrush grazing the back of Chanda’s hand in Kuchar. Her very name, derived from the moon, is emblematic—capturing the gradually illuminating mystery of her own longing, ultimately reaching completeness, like a full moon, aka the symbolic ‘O’.

Her mother, Priya, stumbles upon her erotica novel—worn, misplaced, and tucked away in Chanda’s drawer. What follows is an unravelling of thought, for there are only two directions a parent can take from here: empathy or shame. That choice quietly determines how a teenager learns to see her body and desires while navigating the fragile and unnerving road to adulthood. A girl’s perception of her body is often shaped and cemented during this period, and with deep intensity. Thus, when Priya discovers the book, the viewer feels a palpable tension—afraid and protective of Chanda, and a growing curiosity about how the older woman will respond.

Over its twenty-minute runtime, the film conjures discomfort and a rare compassion towards desire with disarming freshness. As two women from different generations confide in each other about stealing erotic books and awakening to their sexuality, they seem to heal a lineage of women who have long carried shame—those who were taught to see their bodies not as sites of pleasure, but as passive vessels of male desire.

The film features a playful ‘Gutar Gu’ anthem, written by Sharma herself and sung and composed by Rahul Siddharth Kamble to lighten the mood, infusing a sense of mischief, secrecy, and the electric thrill of Chanda’s first imaginings and her eventual encounters with the washing machine. Through this tender, yet subversive tale of transgression and acceptance—of womanhood and the “itch” that accompanies being a creature of desire—Priya finds emancipation through her daughter. She is compelled to reclaim her sexuality, despite having a partner, nurturing an enduring relationship with herself and her own sensual being. Siddhant Khemka’s delicate cinematography, bathed in mango hues and composed of gently framed faces, infuses the film with emotional intimacy, dreamlike beauty, and quiet sensuality.

Ultimately, the film becomes a tribute to women who could never quite name the “itch” they felt, yet learned to embrace both their knowing and their elusiveness. It calls for the release of shame and the quiet reclamation of the body. It also helps that the creative team carries a predominantly female presence and influence, which elevates the narrative—refusing to trivialize or sensationalise female sexuality, treating it instead with rare grace and authenticity.