Aisling Chin-Yee seated on a stool, looking away from the camera, half in shadow

AislingChin-Yee

Director, writer, producer and editor
Montreal and Los Angeles

“A genre unto itself.”The New Yorker

About

Director, writer, producer, editor

Aisling "Ash" Chin-Yee is an award-winning Asian Canadian filmmaker — a documentary and narrative director, writer, and producer based in Montreal and Los Angeles. Of Jamaican-Chinese and Irish heritage, she is one of the leading women directors working in Canadian film and television today. Named by The Hollywood Reporter as one of Canada's Most Powerful Women in Entertainment 2026, her work spans documentary, drama, and comedy across film and television — grounded in a deep commitment to honest, character-driven storytelling. Her latest film, The Pink Pill, won the Audience Award at DOC NYC 2025 and debuted at #1 on Paramount+ Canada. She was advised and trained for many years by her late partner, filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée.

Aisling is represented by Raquelle David at New Story Entertainment, attorney Katherine McClure at Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman, and Drew MacKenzie at Great North Artists in Canada. She is a dual Canadian and UK citizen.

Aisling Chin-Yee, Canadian filmmaker, press headshot

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Work

The Pink Pill

2025

Documentary feature film

Director, writer, executive producer

A bold examination of the fight for female sexual health — and the pharmaceutical industry’s complicated relationship with women’s desire. Premiered at DOC NYC 2025; streaming on Paramount+ Canada.

  • Audience Award — DOC NYC 2025
  • #1 Streamed Film — Paramount+ Canada, March 2026
Learn more

Plan B

2023

Limited television series, CBC

Director, episodes 3, 4 and 5. Executive producer, season 2

A time-travel legal drama starring Patrick J. Adams, Karine Vanasse, and François Arnaud. An ambitious lawyer exploits temporal loops to rewrite his life — but control is an illusion.

  • Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Mini-Series — Directors Guild of Canada 2023
Learn more

No Ordinary Man

2020

Documentary feature film, TIFF Top Ten

Director, writer, editor

The story of Billy Tipton — a jazz musician who, after death, was revealed to the world as transgender. A groundbreaking portrait of legacy, identity, and community. Co-directed with Chase Joynt, co-written with Amos Mac.

  • TIFF Canada’s Top Ten 2020
  • Best Canadian Feature — Inside Out Film Festival 2020
  • Best Documentary Editing — Directors Guild of Canada 2021
  • “A genre unto itself” — The New Yorker
Read the New Yorker review

The Rest of Us

2019

Feature film, TIFF 2019

Director, editor

Starring Heather Graham, Sophie Nélisse, and Jodi Balfour. A divorced mother and her daughter reckon with grief, blended family, and the complicated geometry of loss — after her ex-husband’s second wife moves in.

  • World Premiere — Toronto International Film Festival 2019
  • Nominated — Best Editing, CEE
Watch on Hulu

Demo reel

Selected work

Director reel, 11:18

A curated reel of dramatic narrative work — from intimate character studies to large-scale television production.

In development

Transference

Feature film, psychological thriller

When Jack Lin, a prestigious therapist to the powerful, takes on a wealthy client's sharp and defiant adopted daughter, he becomes enthralled by her unsettling honesty about race and identity. As their sessions blur personal and professional boundaries, his carefully constructed life begins to unravel.

Writer, director

Remote Control

Series, drama

On a dating show that promises every kind of happily-ever-after, romantic disaster Kris discovers that eliminated contestants are coming back "fixed," and she must harness her queer rage before she's next.

In development

The Crossing

Documentary feature film

Two Ghanaian asylum seekers cross continents, jungles, and frozen borders only to lose their fingers to frostbite at the Canadian frontier — The Crossing traces their harrowing journey toward safety and the new lives they build on the other side, bearing witness to a system that turns survival into a crime.

Director, writer, executive producer

Noble Television, Inferno Pictures, NFB

The Day Between

Feature film, drama

Siblings Caitlin and Kevin share the same parents but exist in separate worlds — inextricably linked by tragedy. A love story, a ghost story, and a psychological drama about how one event can split a family in two.

Telefilm Canada, SODEC, Harold Greenberg Fund

Boundless

Feature film, historical drama

After Pearl Harbor, the daughter of legendary Korean freedom fighter Dosan Ahn Changho becomes the first Asian woman in the US military — and faces a war on the home front.

Director

My Camino

Feature film, based on a true story

Based on the true story of Sue Kenney's transformative walk along the Camino de Santiago in the wake of profound personal loss. One woman's journey of grief and reinvention.

Director, co-writer

Item 7, Elevation Pictures

You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked.

Feature film, drama

A young Chinese-American translator falls hard for a Japanese artist whose frequent disappearances leave him in an existential and often comical crisis. When she leaves him for good, he is faced with the man who stands in his way of happiness: himself. And then, of course, she upends his life and his heart once again.

Writer, director

Significant Productions

News

September 2026

Two DGC Award nominations for The Pink Pill

Aisling was nominated for Best Directing of a Documentary and Steve Taylor for Best Documentary Editing at the 25th Annual DGC Awards.

September 2026

The Crossing greenlit by the National Film Board of Canada

POV Magazine reported that Aisling's feature documentary The Crossing is among 16 projects receiving production support from the NFB.

March 2026

The Pink Pill debuts at #1 on Paramount+

Following its Audience Award win at DOC NYC, The Pink Pill premiered on Paramount+ Canada and immediately became the platform's most-streamed film.

2026

Named one of Canada's Most Powerful Women in Entertainment

The Hollywood Reporter named Aisling to its annual list of the most powerful women in Canadian entertainment.

November 2025

The Pink Pill wins Audience Award at DOC NYC

Deadline reported the win at this year's DOC NYC festival, one of the most prestigious documentary platforms in North America.

2024

Trailblazer Award — Reel World Film Festival

Aisling was honoured with the Trailblazer Award by the Reel World Film Festival, recognising her sustained contribution to diverse storytelling in Canadian film.

2023

DGC Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement — Plan B

Aisling won the Directors Guild of Canada award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Mini-Series for her work on the CBC limited series Plan B.

2021

No Ordinary Man named one of the Best Films of 2021 by The New Yorker

The New Yorker named No Ordinary Man one of the best films of the year, calling Aisling's work "a genre unto itself."

Contact

No unsolicited material.

Management (LA)

Raquelle David

New Story Entertainment

raquelle@newstoryentertainment.com

Agent (Canada)

Drew MacKenzie

Great North Artists

drew@greatnorthartists.com

Legal (LA)

Katherine McClure

Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman

General inquiries and speaking engagements

aisling@fluentfilms.ca