TORONTO: Karenjit Kaur Vohra didn’t hesitate for a second when she was asked her name while getting her first assignment in the American adult entertainment industry. “My name is Sunny,” she said. Only it was her brother’s name and nobody in her family knew what she was up to.
Year’s later, that name, Sunny Leone, means many things go many different people. For some in her own Punjabi family in Canada where she lived, Leone is doing something “not respectable in the society”. Back home in India, many more are eager to judge her according to standards they themselves set for others. But there is no mistaking the fact that Sunny Leone is a name to reckon with in the Indian entertainment industry. And her brother, Sunny Singh Vohra doesn’t bother if his sister is famous in his name.
The prejudices of a male-dominated society is the essence of ‘Mostly Sunny’, a new documentary on the life of Sunny Leone. World premiered at the 41st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the film gives a rare insight into the ordinary person that Leone is. Just like everybody else.
Directed by Dilip Mehta, the brother of celebrated filmmaker Deepa Mehta, ‘Mostly Sunny’ handles issues of women’s empowerment and sexuality through a life’s story, the Indian society has problems in dealing with. “I like not pretending somebody I am not,” explains Leone in the film, shot in India and Canada.
Part of the Toronto festival’s documentary programme that includes films from around the world, like a new documentary on the Rolling Stones’ Latin America tour, ‘Mostly Sunny’ hasn’t taken much time in capturing the mood of a global audience.
“Instead of a privileged, upper class Bollywood starlet, the Sunny we see here is a common-sense small-town girl who is deeply devoted to both her family and her work,” says Toronto festival programmer Steve Gravestock.
“What emerges from ‘Mostly Sunny’ is a portrait of a woman whose exposure on the job has not destroyed the loving wife and daughter at home: if she’s Sunny to millions, to her family she’s still Karen (short for Karenjit),” he adds.
Leone’s American businessman-husband David Weber is a main character in the film, always by his wife’s side respecting her as a professional. “Sunny is a brand. Karen is my wife,” says Weber. (AGENCIES)
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