The Pink Pill: Dartmouth filmmaker tackles societal norms, medical equality in new movie

Filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee is pictured with Cindy Eckert, the CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals and a women’s health advocate. (Photo By: Karri North)

Filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee’s new movie, “The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control,” enters the cultural conversation about societal norms, bodily autonomy and medical equality.

Chin-Yee, who grew up in Dartmouth, N.S., has been involved in making socially-conscious films since she landed her first industry job at the National Film Board of Canada as an associate producer.

“I worked for Germaine Wong and Adam Szymanski, who were two amazing producers that had been at the NFB for a long time… They had that ethos of what a public film producer was supposed to do for how they serve the public, getting paid with tax dollars, making movies that should only be able to be made by the National Film Board, because it meant they could take risks,” said Chin-Yee in an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Melanie Price.

“So that ethos of really sticking to telling authentic stories with authentic voices and not chasing the market was a wonderful place to kind of come up.”

Now an award-winning director, writer and producer, Chin-Yee’s latest project premiered Friday on Paramount+.

“The Pink Pill” features Cindy Eckert, the CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals and a women’s health advocate, who spearheaded the decade-long fight to bring a pill to market that treats hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women.

The American Sexual Health Association defines HSDD as “the absence of sexual fantasies and thoughts, and/or desire for or receptivity to, sexual activity that causes personal distress or difficulties in her relationship.” The Society for Women’s Health Research estimates that about one in ten women have HSDD.

“It’s looking at the journey that she had to fight, which was through misogyny, through just being dismissed as a female CEO and through the questions that experts in the medical field had that were absolutely not scientific based, like ‘Why do we even care if women’s sex lives are satisfying?’” said Chin-Yee.

“Her journey of exposing that gender bias that was in these systems… to be able to get her drug Addyi approved finally.”

Eckert says the field of sexual health is an area with a lot of new scientific discoveries, which is why she was drawn to it.

“So, the nerd in me really likes that piece and I think when you can change this in someone’s life, if you’re struggling with an issue in this arena, changing that is transformational to your life. That’s what I’ve loved the most. No question,” said Eckert.

“There’s spectacular science that can help us with diseases, blood pressure, cardiovascular, etc., but watch what happens when you change somebody’s relationship with their own sexuality, or their ability to be intimate or connected to the person they want to be the most connected to. I love that for the payoff, if you will, of what it means in people’s lives.”

In Canada, drugs are reviewed by the Health Products and Food Branch of Health Canada. The department approved Addyi (flibanserin) for premenopausal women in 2018 and postmenopausal women in 2021.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States – which regulates such things as food, drugs, medical devices, vaccines, and biologics – approved Addyi for the treatment of HSDD in premenopausal women in 2015 and in postmenopausal women under 65 in 2025.

The documentary includes footage from 2014 when an FDA advisory panel heard people speak on the pros and cons of Addyi. Addressing the panel, one woman stated, “Women don’t need treatments with real side effects for imaginary diseases invented by marketers.”

When asked what she would say to someone who shares that mindset, Eckert pointed to the science.

“Science cures bias and, once we are now trading in fact, what I would say to somebody who would stand in the way of another person having an option is that they really need to examine why that is,” says Eckert.

“They would never have to take this option, should they not want to. Well, why would they not allow somebody else to have it in this particular area? You know, this is a condition that we’ve known about medically since the 70s and yet still, you know, not that long ago, just 10 years ago, we were still litigating whether or not women deserved treatment for it. That just makes no scientific sense to me. And frankly, it makes no moral sense to me as well.”

Chin-Yee calls the film a piece of resistance and hopes it emboldens women to speak up about the things that are important to them.

“A lot of the doctors that are in the film, they have a strong social media presence because they want to inform their patients to be able to go into their doctor and discuss things that are, that are issues for them,” she says.

“We’re at this point where, like, science is moving fast. If science continues to, to progress, but there is now a kind of a cultural step back into what women should be allowed to ask for, or how we treat them.”

Chin-Yee says the award-winning film’s North American premiere date of March 6 – two days before International Women’s Day – was purposefully chosen.

“(We) really wanted it to, to come out just ahead of International Women’s Day so that we can have these conversations, have them open, have them with your girlfriend, have them with your husband, to have them with their, you know, your wives,” says Chin-Yee.

“All of these things can happen in this moment where, you know, there’s a lens pointed maybe a little bit more, pointed a little more strong right now on women’s issues. So hopefully it breaks through in that capacity.”

When asked what she hopes viewers take away from the film, Eckert said to fight for what is rightfully yours.

“My hope is that everyone watches it and realizes that one time that you are underestimated, overlooked, dismissed, you push through it,” she says.

“That’s my hope. I really do believe that, you know, sometimes when you fight, you can win and it’s worth it if the facts are on your side. So that’s my hope for everybody who watches it.”

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