Aisling Chin-Yee
Directing
Biography
Aisling Chin-Yee (born 29 April 1982) is a Canadian film director, writer, and producer. She is mixed Jamaican-Chinese and Irish. In 2004, Chin-Yee graduated from Concordia University with a degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Film Studies, concentrating in film production, theory, and analysis. In 2006, Chin-Yee started her career as associate producer at the National Film Board of Canada. In 2010, she joined Prospector Films as producer. She runs Fluent Films, a film and television production studio. Her first directorial effort was the short film, Sound Asleep, which premiered at the 2014 Lucerne International Film Festival. The following year, her documentary film, Synesthesia, won the award for Best Short Documentary at the Crossroads Film Festival. Along with Mia Kirshner and Freya Ravensbergen, Chin-Yee co-created the #AfterMeToo movement in 2016, which includes a fund, roundtable series, and report in partnership with the Canadian Women's Foundation. In 2018, she was selected in the inaugural cohort of the nonprofit Take The Lead's 50 Women Can Change the World in Media and Entertainment. Her directorial debut feature film, The Rest of Us, premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. That year, Chin-Yee received the TIFF Canning Fellowship. She was nominated for best feature film editing by the Canadian Cinema Editors. In 2020, she co-directed the documentary feature film No Ordinary Man, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was named one of the TIFF Top Ten films for the year. It won the Best Canadian Feature Film award at Toronto's Inside Out LGBTQ Film Festival, along with awards at three other film festivals. Chin-Yee is a Berlinale Talent Alumni, a Rotterdam Producer's Network Alumni, a Tribeca Film Institute Alumni, TIFF Filmmaker Lab, and was part of the 2017 Academy Women Directors' Program.
Known For
Two mother-daughter duos must contend with their grief and complicated relationships with one another when the person who connects them dies.
The Rest of Us
A documentary that captures a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for complete health care equality, at a time when bodily autonomy hangs in the balance.
The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs and Who Has Control
When teenaged Fern is orphaned in the middle of a harsh Montreal winter, she is determined to avoid her mother’s tragic fate, and take care of herself. With Youth Protection nipping at her heels, she lies about her name and age, to get a job as a janitor another as a cook. Juggling life and work and the discovery of the book, ‘50 Ways to become a Millionaire: All you need to do is save,’ Fern decides to do just that, replacing her grief with the quest to become a millionaire. Written, directed and edited by award-winning filmmaker Wiebke von Carolsfeld (Marion Bridge, Stay), The Saver stars the newly discovered Imajyn Cardinal and is based on the young adult novel by Edeet Ravel.
The Saver
In 1976, a Mi'gMaq teenager plots revenge against the sadistic Indian agent who imprisoned her in a residential school where rape and abuse are common.
Rhymes for Young Ghouls
The legacy of Billy Tipton, a 20th-century American jazz musician and trans icon, is brought to life by a diverse group of contemporary trans artists.
No Ordinary Man
On Declan's sixth birthday, his baby brother Michael dies in his crib from sudden infant death syndrome. His birthday forgotten, and not understanding what "dead" is, Declan experience's the death of his brother only through his parents' grief, frozen in their pain. Declan seeks refuge in his baby brother's room. His birthday now intrinsically linked with Michael's death, he tries to understand what has happened to his family, and if he too will stop breathing in the night. Based on a true story, SOUND ASLEEP is an intimate drama about death from the perspective of six-year-old boy.
Sound Asleep
In this inventive short, celebrated actor and director R.H. Thomson playfully deconstructs narrative, parting the curtain on the five central stories that frame our understanding of the world.