In time for International Women’s Day, Montreal filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee unveils her new documentary, “The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control,” which explores the big story around a little pink pill.
“When I watch it now after it’s finished, there are still parts that, even though I’m the person who made the film, that move me so deeply,” she explained. “Like move me to tears, moving me to emotion.”
“I’m deeply honoured when people take this type of time to reveal such intimate parts about themselves,” explained Chin-Yee. “It’s not the stuff that people are generally talking about with strangers.”
Now, what is Addyi—the pink pill—exactly?
Well, one might have heard of “the blue pill”—Viagra—used to treat erectile dysfunction. As for Addyi, it is the first FDA- and Health Canada-approved treatment for women’s sexual desire.
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The documentary follows Cindy Eckert, entrepreneur and advocate for women’s health, in the decade-long fight to bring Addyi to market.
“I was transported back to a moment that’s not that long ago in which we were having such a tense conversation about a woman’s right to pleasure,” she said in an interview with CityNews. “When you watch, the film is so eye-opening that we could be in that struggle.”
“I think culture is finally ready to have the truth-based conversation about this,” she added.
Persistent in pink, Eckert confronted systemic bias in medicine and healthcare head-on, ultimately winning approval for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women in 2015.
In Canada, Addyi was approved in 2018.
And in 2021, for postmenopausal women.
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Following the World Premiere of the film at DocsNYC in November last year, where it won the Audience Award, the FDA approved Addyi for menopausal women in the U.S.
As for the award-winning filmmaker, Chin-Yee says her Montreal roots have definitely inspired her work.
“One of the many wonderful things about living in Montreal is that our arts community is so tightly knit,” she explained. “We feed off of each other so these are conversations that we have, we talk about pleasure.”
“I’m not from Montreal but my belief is that everyone in Montreal must have great sex,” added Eckert. “I’ll tell you why, there is a bastion of the best sexual medicine experts in the world who came from Montreal.”
“So my perspective being in sexual medicine,” she added. “Is you guys are doing something right.”
The documentary is available as of March 6 in Canada and the U.S. on Paramount+.
