English department alumnus, has co-produced a documentary called Cashing Out
Luke Hodges, English department alumnus, has co-produced a documentary called Cashing Out, about a controversial AIDS-era industry where dying gay men sold their life insurance policies to investors. The film will be distributed by The New Yorker in the spring of 2025.
In addition, the film will be having a one-week standalone theatrical run in NYC at Firehouse Cinema Dec 13-19, and a screening is planned in Columbia in spring 2025 to coincide with the film's release on The New Yorker’s website.
Cashing Out just had its NYC festival premiere at DOC NYC, the country's largest documentary film festival. Here is the website page for this showing.
The film had its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying Provincetown International Film Festival in June. The film has been supported by IF/Then x NBC as part of their Original Voices Shorts program, and is executive produced by Oscar-nominee Julie Cohen (director of RBG).
Cashing Out (dir. Matt Nadel | prods. Luke Hodges & Matt Nadel 39 mins) illuminates a dark time. At the height of the AIDS crisis, thousands of queer people sold their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash. A thought-provoking exploration of this billion-dollar "AIDS profiteering" industry, Cashing Out tells the intimate stories of those who fought for dignity in an unfeeling marketplace -- and investigates the filmmaker's unlikely personal connection to this industry.
Luke Hodges is a filmmaker based in New York City, a UofSC English department alumnus with roots in Columbia, South Carolina. With Matt Nadel, he is the co-founder of Nine Patch Pictures, a documentary production company focused on queer stories. Cashing Out is Nine Patch’s first film. Hodges's latest documentary short, Odd Man In (executive produced by Oscar winner Caroline Waterlow, OJ: Made in America), will premiere in 2025 on PBS’ Independent Lens.