Project Info

Although 6 to 7 million women in Germany are on the pill, knowledge about its effects beyond contraception is limited. With the film project "Pille Palle" I would like to encourage women and everyone else to make use of sex education and to inform themselves.

In the short films on this website, different women, gynecologists, a counselor from pro familia (non-governmental organisation for sexuality, pregnancy and relationship related councelling), a medicine expert and a pharmacist – report on their experiences with the pill, information and education provided about the pill, and on their positive and negative effects. My project also gives an insight into the German healthcare system and shows which and how different interests meet and may clash.

Idea

The initial starting point of this project was, among others, an article in the magazine Spiegel in 2015 about a woman named Felicitas Rohrer, who suffered a thrombosis due to taking the pill Yasminelle and as a result almost died from a pulmonary embolism. Today, she is involved in the group Initiative Thrombosegschädigte (initiative of thrombosis victims) founded by her and other affected women and on the website Risiko Pille.

Team

Kathrin Ahäuser – production, direction, photography and editing

Philip Hallay – camera

Timm Gillner – camera for "Ricarda F"

Jan Schulten – set-sound

Henning Großmann – sound design

Lars Frühling – colour grading

Fabian Bremser – webdesign

Tim Nagel – website programming

Patricia Bollschweiler – translation

Max Slobodda – portrait of Kathrin Ahäuser

Thanks a lot to my team, my family, friends, fellow students, supporters and the promotion of this project.