Q&A: Filmmaker Matt Nadel on Cashing Out and the Morality of AIDS-Era Viaticals

As a young gay man, Matt Nadel was discomfited to learn in 2020 that his father, Phil Nadel, had invested in the viatical settlements industry in the early years of the AIDS crisis. “He shared that he’d made a good bit of money off of the life insurance policies of gay men who died of AIDS. That’s what funded my childhood,” Nadel says.