''Orgasm Inc.'' (2009) is a ''New York Times'' "Critic's Pick" and the first feature documentary by award-winning director

Liz Canner Liz Canner is an American filmmaker who makes documentaries, digital public art installations and new media projects on human rights issues. Her documentary ''Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank and the IMF'' (1995), was one of the first fil ...

. It premiered at the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival. In the documentary, filmmaker

takes a job editing erotic movies for a

drug trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dieta ...

for a

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympto ...

called

Vivus Vivus () is a small pharmaceutical company headquartered in Campbell, California, working in obesity, sleep, and sexual health. Vivus is developing an erectile dysfunction drug, Avanafil, that has completed Phase 3 clinical trials. The drug has b ...

. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first

Viagra Sildenafil, sold under the brand name Viagra, among others, is a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. It is unclear if it is effective for treating sexual dysfunction in women. It is taken by ...

drug for women that wins FDA approval to treat a new disease:

female sexual dysfunction Female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) is a disorder characterized by a persistent or recurrent inability to attain sexual arousal or to maintain arousal until the completion of a sexual activity. The diagnosis can also refer to an inadequate l ...

(FSD). Liz gains permission to film the company's work in general for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure but she soon begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits. The film continues from Vivus onto the more general question of whether there is a solid scientific foundation to medical industry claims about what constitutes "healthy" female sexuality and whether drugs and surgery are a suitable first-line approach to obtaining it. The film documents an emerging medical industry intent on convincing as large a market of women as possible that they have medical problems, and that those problems are best solved by expensive and dangerous medical treatments. ''Orgasm Inc.'' is presented as a look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping the public's lives concerning health, illness, desire, and orgasm.

Release

''Orgasm Inc.'' premiered at the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival in 2009. It has shown in over 70 film festivals all over the world, including the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The film has also been broadcast on national television in Canada,

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, France, Italy,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Israel, Spain,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, United States and Japan. The film was picked up by First Run Features who released the movie in cinemas in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

on February 11, 2011.

Critical reception

Since its release in 2009, ''Orgasm Inc.'' has received numerous awards, including the Best Feature award at the Vermont International Film Festival, the 2nd Best Feature award at the KOS International Health Film Festival, the Best Documentary Award at the Southeast New England (SENE) Film, Music, and Arts Festival, and the Best Feature Award at the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' named it a "Critic's Pick" and said that it was "as entertaining as it was revelatory". The Hot Docs Film Festival called it an "extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company's fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women — and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry". Newsweek said " rgasm Inc.is a desperately needed antidote to all the hype generated by pharmaceutical companies pursuing their holy grail: a female Viagra." ''The Times'' called it "an extraordinary, revelatory documentary about female desire and the pharmaceutical industry". In addition, articles about the movie and quotes from director Liz Canner have appeared internationally in hundreds of articles and blogs and dozens of TV shows and radio programs such as ABC News, Vogue, Newsweek, the Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC World Service, Public Radio, the LA Times, the Guardian, Cosmopolitan South Africa, Glamour Brazil, etc. This media attention has helped to raise serious questions about the pharmaceutical industries involvement with creating and marketing diseases. It has also protected millions of women from being misled into believing that they have FSD and they need to be treated with a drug (that could potentially harm them).

References

External links

*
Variety review of Orgasm Inc.
* * {{IMDb name, id=0134090, name=Elizabeth Canner 2009 films American documentary films American independent films 2009 documentary films 2009 directorial debut films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2009 independent films