BEST DOCUMENTARY - Chelsea Film Festival | AUDIENCE AWARD, BEST DOC - Rome BIOPIC Festival | BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY - International Sport Film Festival Slovenia | BEST AUTHOR - Millenium Film Festival | BEST DOCS - DOK.FEST Munich | BEST OF WOMEN'S VOICES - Portland Film Festival | "Intimate... a unique project" - The Guardian
Paralympics • Disability • Medical Aid-in-Dying • Right-to-Die • Sports • Women’s issues • LGBT • Social Work • Law • EthicsDate of Completion: 2022 | Run Time: 86 & 55 minutes | Language: English with French and Dutch subtitles | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Writer, Director & Editor: Pola Rapaport | Producers: Pola Rapaport & Wolfgang Held | Co-Producers: Mark Daems & Rebecca Borden | Director of Photography: Wolfgang Held | Original Music: Naima Joris & Loup Mormont
Strong-willed, funny, and charismatic, Belgian triathlon champion Marieke Vervoort’s time is running out. At 29, paralyzed from the waist down, a debilitating, chronic illness she has had for 15 years has begun to take its toll. As Marieke’s strength falters and her pain increases, she decides to take control by signing papers to die by the controversial procedure of medical aid-in-dying (MAID), legal in her home country. Liberated and empowered by having the legal permission to die, Marieke rediscovers the freedom and thrill of competition. For over a decade, all she wants is to live fully. Through sheer willpower, she qualifies for the Paralympics and wins Gold in Paralympic and World Championship wheelchair-racing. 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: international travel, media attention, and a wildly physical bucket list, including indoor-skydiving, Lamborghini racing and bungee-jumping. With unlimited access, ADDICTED TO LIFE intimately documents this determined, vulnerable, and astonishing athlete through her final inspirational three years. Marieke’s acceptance of death becomes an affirmation of life. In this timely film, Marieke’s story demystifies one of the most controversial issues of our time.
Educational Media Reviews Online | Reviewed by Beth Carpenter, Undergraduate Engineering & Instruction Librarian, University at Buffalo
"This film shows a very real human experience that would make for good class discussion and debate."
Meghan Kallman | State Senator, Rhode Island District 15
"ADDICTED TO LIFE tells an unflinching, yet tender story: following the experience of an elite athlete with a progressive degenerative disease, the film highlights the complexity, pain, and beauty of being able to choose to end one's life with dignity."
Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School | Tom Bledsoe, MD MACP
"This film made a deep impression on both the medical students and the faculty in attendance. Those new to the topic left with much to think about and those with settled opinions left unsettled, also with much to think about. The film is a powerful presentation of the issues around medical assistance in dying and even euthanasia and its powerful effect is on both the emotional and intellectual levels for the audience. The experience of watching it highlights important issues for those who care about and care for persons with serious illness."
AWARDS
Best Documentary | Chelsea Film Festival
Audience Award, Best Documentary | Rome BIOPIC Festival
Feature Documentary Bronze | Social Justice Film Festival
Honorable Mention | International Women’s Film Festival
Best Feature Documentary | International Sport Film Festival Slovenia
Best Author | Millenium Film Festival
Best Docs | DOK.FEST Munich
Best of Women's Voices | Portland Film Festival
Best Directing | BOSIFEST Film Festival
FESTIVALS
Hamilton Film Festival
Milano International FICS Final Of Fests
Ostend International Film Festival
Director & Producer of ADDICTED TO LIFE
Pola Rapaport is a New York-based writer, director, and editor, and voting member of the Oscars. Her recent doc short, "PANORAMIC VIEW: Portrait of the Artist Francine Tint" premiered at DOC NYC in 2025.Her last feature documentary, ADDICTED TO LIFE was a multi-award winner. It portrayed Paralympic star Marieke Vervoort and her plan to live her life to the maximum before she died by euthanasia. Rapaport’s earlier films, all prize winners, include: “Nadia Comāneci: The Gymnast and the Dictator” (2016), “Hair: Let the Sun Shine In”, (2007); “Writer of O,” (2004), “Family Secret,” (2000) (winner, Grand Prix of the French authors’ society), “Blind Light,” (1998) starring Edie Falco, and “Broken Meat,”(1990).
Rapaport has been a Guggenheim, NYFA & Yaddo Fellow and an Emmy nominee.
Since 2017, she has been on faculty at NYU Tisch Film School. She is a dual citizen of the USA and France.
Rapaport founded the production company Blinding Light, Inc. with her husband, Director of Photography Wolfgang Held, ASC, who has collaborated with her on many of her films.
Expertise
In the five-years of production and editing on ADDICTED TO LIFE, I learned an enormous amount about the field of medical aid-in-dying in the USA and abroad, which I share with audiences. The personal aspect of the film, in capturing the remarkable character of Paralympian Marieke Vervoort, brings the ethical, emotional, and political aspects of this controversial topic into the hearts and minds of its viewers.
Speaking History
New York University, lecturer in the department of Undergraduate Film and TV, 2017- present.
Speaker at educational presentations of ADDICTED TO LIFE:
Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School
New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Pratt Institute
Worcester State University
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Festivals where ADDICTED TO LIFE has won awards, with speaking opportunities:
Chelsea Film Festival, NY
Portland Oregon Film Festival
Munich DOK.Fest
BOSIFEST, Belgrade, Serbia
Nagano FICTS Sports Festival, Japan
Guest Lecturer:
Montclair State University
School of Visual Arts