Aisling Chin-Yee is an award-winning producer, writer, and director based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. She made her feature directorial debut with 2019’s “The Rest of Us.” Her producing credits include “Rhymes for Young Ghouls,” “Last Woman Standing,” and “The Saver.” In 2017, Chin-Yee co-founded the #AfterMeToo movement alongside Mia Kirshner and Freya Ravensbergen.

“No Ordinary Man” will screen at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, which is taking place September 10-20. Chase Joynt co-directed the film.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

AC: “No Ordinary Man” is a film about Billy Tipton, a transmasculine American jazz musician who played during the ’30s to the ’50s. He toured the night club circuit, living a vibrant life on the road with his bands and girlfriends. In the ’50s, he settled down in Spokane, Washington with his last wife, Kitty Tipton, and adopted three sons, where he lived a quiet, suburban life as a talent agent.

When he died in 1989, it was discovered and outed to and by the media that he was a transgender man. The media narrative about him was that he was a woman passing as a man in the pursuit of a musical career. Chase Joynt, my co-director, and I, reimagine and retell his story through the voices and experiences of transgender artists, experts, and actors to contextualize Tipton’s life and its meaning, both historically and today.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

AC: I’ve always been drawn to stories about people who have been misunderstood, and in particular those from minoritized communities or genders. Billy’s story was so compelling to me. Here was a man who lived a beautiful life, was a gifted musician, was a family man, and after he died had his story distorted and changed, and his family made into a spectacle on the talk show circuit. It was heartbreaking, but also inspiring to do right by Billy, and the people most affected by his story.

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

AC: I think depending on who you are in relation to Billy’s story, you’ll take away different things. Perhaps you will feel seen and understood if you are trans or from a minoritized community, who are so often misrepresented in mainstream media. Perhaps you’ll see yourself in Billy’s story, or someone else featured in the film.

Or perhaps the film will have opened up an understanding of another person’s life unlike your own, and inspire a reminder that we all deserve the right to privacy, family, love, healthcare, and the opportunity to live our truth authentically and without surveillance and suspicion

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

AC: We shot the film in nine days, over several months. Besides the interviews and casting/auditions, the rest was archival and family photos.

I also edited the film, so one of the main challenges, and inspirations to tell this story, was to weave in Billy’s personal story, and the story of his son, Billy Jr., within the framework of trans lives both historically and today.

This flow was mapped out by Chase and I after we finished shooting, but as with any film, the craft of cutting can take you in unexpected and often beautiful new ways of storytelling.

W&H: How did you get your film funded?

AC: “No Ordinary Man” was made in partnership with Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, SODEC, SODEC Tax Credit, Documentary Channel, CAVCO, and TVO. It is produced by Sarah Spring of Parabola Films.

W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?

AC: Luckily, we had already been in post-production for “No Ordinary Man” for a few months when the first lockdown struck. Since I am also the editor, it wasn’t terribly disrupted — my edit suite is in my home, and I didn’t have to social distance from myself, but it was hard to not be able to meet with the team in real life as we finished these last six months of post.

It is also hard to keep one’s creative spirit up when we don’t have real world outlets to be inspired, whether it’s seeing friends, going to the movie theater or gallery, listening to live music, or any of the other luxuries we often take for granted.

W&H: Recent protests in the U.S. and abroad have highlighted racism and anti-Black police brutality. The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

AC: As the world changes, and oppressive systemic structures and institutions are being held accountable, we all need to look at how we are complicit in contributing to systems that value white, cisgender, straight, and able-bodied lives more than others, and in particular Black lives. This reckoning needs to be deep, personal, holistic, and exist throughout all aspects of society.

Hollywood, and the media in general, need to start centering the stories and experiences of misrepresented and underrepresented people, told through their own perspectives. Then multiply that by infinity, and perhaps we will start to see a positive change for the stories we see on screen, and truly represent the nuance, beauty, and the complexity of the human experience.