Matt Nadel has quite a connection with the viatical settlement industry – the cottage industry created to purchase life insurance policies from largely gay men dying of AIDS. Based on their life expectancy, policies were purchased and a settlement offered the client, and investors collected the rest when the person died.
Matt, a gay man and filmmaker, has a father who created one of those companies. It largely paid for Matt’s upbringing, but the nature of the company wasn’t revealed to Matt by his father until only a few years ago.
That is the basis for Cashing Out, Matt’s film that takes us back to the early, ruinous days of the AIDS crisis and some of the characters involved, including those who ran the viatical companies and some surviving people living with HIV/AIDS who managed to cheat death – and the investors.
I sat down for a zoom call with Matt as part of Out on Film to discuss his excellent film, and discuss those early days, how his father’s business gave his father insight into gay community that his own gay son didn’t have, and whether or not there is a villain to be found in this equation.
The film includes interviews with trans icon Dee Dee Chamblee as well as the founder of POZ Magazine, Sean Strub, who used a viatical settlement to fund the launch of the magazine.
Thanks for watching, my friends, and please be well.
