Today, we had the chance to talk to Scott Ruderman and Rachel Dyer, the filmmakers behind the documentary Pay or Die, which is debuting in Los Angeles and New York City for November National Diabetes Awareness month.
Scott has lived with type one diabetes since he was a college freshman so this is a personal journey. It is an amazing, powerful film, and I like the language that Rachel uses to describe it "By creating a film that focuses on the human beings behind the headlines, we aim to lay bare the reality of life and death for individuals and families dealing with the inequities and injustices of healthcare in the richest country in the world."
Pay or Die will be a call to action to stand up and fight for change, end quote. I hope you enjoy our conversation and go see this film.
Featured on this episode:
Pay or Die
NOVEMBER 1 | NEW YORK, NY | IFC CENTER
NOVEMBER 10 | LOS ANGELES, CA | LAEMMLE MONICA FILM CENTER
NOVEMBER 14 | STREAMING ON PARAMOUNT+
Director’s Statement
I was a carefree, 19-year-old college freshman when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and my life was forever changed. Since that day, I have walked a life-or-death tightrope each and every day. Living with type 1 diabetes means having to micromanage the insulin I take, the food I eat, and the activities I do, in order to keep my blood sugar from going too high—risking blindness, amputation, and death—or too low, risking seizures and—again—death.
I thought that was hard enough. But then I turned 26, and aged out of my parents’ health insurance plan. That’s when I came face-to-face with the crushing financial reality of living with type 1 diabetes in America.
“Most of my adult life has been defined by one inescapable question: How can I make enough money as a filmmaker to afford the insulin I need to stay alive?” - Director Scott Ruderman
In 2018, my partner Rachael and I went to Vancouver, Canada to visit her family. Rachael encouraged me to see if I could get access to affordable insulin while we were there. We walked into a pharmacy, and the pharmacist showed me all the different types of insulin, ranging in price from $19 to $22 per vial. Right there and then, my eyes welled up with tears. Those exact same insulin vials—the same manufacturers, same chemical compositions—cost upwards of $300 per vial in the United States. How could that be?
I began to dig deeper. I reached out to other Americans living with type 1 diabetes and learned about the extreme measures they were taking simply to stay alive. PAY OR DIE is a deeply personal journey for me, and was born out of a sense of duty, as a filmmaker with type 1 diabetes, to use my filmmaking skills to bring attention to people who are struggling and even dying, senselessly.
ABOUT RACHAEL DYER, DIRECTOR I PRODUCER
As a dual Australian-Canadian citizen living and working in the US as a television and film producer, I've often found myself reeling from the complexity and exorbitant cost of the American healthcare system. But it wasn't until I met Scott that I truly saw and felt firsthand the toll it takes when a human being is forced to not only endure the physical and emotional burdens of living with a disease, but to do so within the harsh confines of a medical-industrial complex that monetizes their body, their life and their humanity.
We've set out to make a film that takes audiences on a journey similar to my own. By creating a film that focuses on the human beings behind the headlines, we aim to lay bare the reality of life — and death — for individuals and families dealing with the inequities and injustices of health care in the richest