ADDICTED TO LIFE

The right to die has given her the will to WIN

A new documentary by POLA RAPAPORT

Winner: Best Documentary Chelsea Film Festival OCT 2023

Audience Award for Best Doc, BIOPIC Fest (Rome) OCT 2023

Best Feature Documentary, Int’l Sport Film Festival Slovenia 2023

BEST OF WOMEN’S VOICES AWARD, PORTLAND FILM FEStival

Best Feature Documentary, Int’l Sport Film Festival Slovenia

Best Author, Millenium Film Festival, Brussels

Best Docs, DOK.FEST Munich

Honorable Mention, Orlando Int’l Film Festival

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE, Ostend Film FESTIVAL

THEATRICAL RELEASE, KINEPOLIS CINEMAS, BELGIUM

Paralympic champion Marieke Vervoort’s time is running out. She determines to end her life with the help of her doctors. Liberated by the legal permission to die, Marieke rediscovers the freedom of living and competing. Her acceptance of death becomes an affirmation of life.

“INTIMATE… a unique project” - The GUARDIAN, UK

“Gripping Documentary” - Dag Allemaal BELGIUM

“A heartbreaking film with an important message” - Het Laatste Nieuws Belgium

FUNDED BY:

NYC WOMEN’S FUND FOR MEDIA, MUSIC and THEATER, MAYOR’S OFFICE FOR FILM AND TELEVISION, 2022 NYSCA POST-PRODUCTION GRANT, 2019
KING BAUDOUIN FOUNDATION GRANT, 2021
THE FLANDERS AUDIOVISUAL FUND (VAF), 2021 and the KBF Hibiscus Fund, 2021

Length 86 minutes

[56 minute television version also available upon request]

TRAILER:

SYNOPSIS

Strong-willed, funny, and charismatic, at 37, Belgian Paralympic champion Marieke Vervoort’s time is running out. A debilitating illness she has had for more than 20 years has begun to take its toll. As Marieke's strength falters and her body begins to fail, she decides to take control by signing papers to request medical aid-in-dying, a controversial procedure that is forbidden by law in most other countries.

Liberated and empowered by now having the legal permission to end her life, Marieke again discovers the freedom and thrill of living and of competition. Recovering her sense of self-determination, over the next decade, Marieke postpones her decision to die. Through sheer willpower and strength of character, she wins Gold in wheelchair-racing in the Paralympic Games and World Championships.

Even as her health deteriorates, her spirit soars. While managing the struggle and emotions of friends and family as they try to accept her decision, Marieke continues to live life to the max, addicted to the adrenaline and adventure of international travel, intense competition, media attention, and a wildly physical bucket list, including indoor-skydiving and bungee-jumping.

Throughout, Marieke draws people to her: fans, girlfriends, celebrities, and other people with disabilities. With virtually unlimited access, ADDICTED TO LIFE  intimately documents this determined, vulnerable, and astonishing athlete through the dramatic events of her final inspirational three years, during which Marieke's acceptance of death becomes an affirmation of life. Marieke demystifies one of the most controversial issues of our time.

CONTEXT

Nine countries and ten states in America, plus DC, permit medical aid-in-dying, which remains highly controversial. Belgium, like Oregon in the USA, has been at the forefront of the “Death With Dignity” movement. The political debate about ending one’s life with medication touches at the heart of ethical, religious, and legal questions. Should we have control over the timing and quality of our own death?

For Marieke Vervoort, finding a humane solution to her very personal questions about the end of her own life led her to speak out and become an important participant in the larger debate about end-of-life choices. Through the lens of Marieke's story, this film examines existential and moral questions about how we die—and how we live. 

INTERNATIONAL COVERAGE

As a two-person team, Pola Rapaport and her husband Wolfgang Held, ASC documented Marieke’s extraordinary and dramatic life for three years. We were there to document her last days. When the pain and disability became too much for her, Marieke took her own life, with her doctor’s assistance, on Tuesday, October 22, 2019.

In the days after Marieke’s death by euthanasia, her passing was widely covered by the international press, from her native Belgium, throughout Europe, to the US, Brazil, Japan, India and Australia.

On December 8, 2019, a major article and photographic essay on Marieke and her death by euthanasia appeared in the New York Times in a special section, with photos by MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Lynsey Addario. This article brings major US and international attention to Marieke and her story, introducing her to an international audience ahead of our documentary. 

For more information go to mariekethefilm.com