Business & Tech

Community Helps Filmmaker Continue Series on Breast Cancer Awareness

The second annual "Positively Pink" fundraiser was held Thursday night in Bristol.

Three months after Deborah Hoch began producing a documentary on the early detection of breast cancer, she was diagnosed with the disease herself.

Hoch, who is the producer and director of Mega Star Productions, Inc., was not set back by her diagnosis, choosing instead to create a series of films on breast cancer for patients, survivors, and their loved ones.

"No one really knows what you are going through other than someone who has gone through it," she said about her motivation for making the films.

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Thursday night, hundreds gathered beneath tents at Michael and Marie Byrnes's estate in Bristol to raise money for Hoch's documentary series. The second annual fundraiser featured local vendors who arranged booths of massages, manicures, and snacks for ticket-holding guests who had donated to the Breast Health Awareness Foundation.

Flippity Funwear and Ardor Boutique provided clothing for a fashion show during the event. Positively Pink also marked the debut of a preview of the second part of Hoch's breast health series, which focuses on the experience of breast cancer for loved ones of the diagnosed.

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Hoch, who is originally from Seekonk, credits the idea behind Positively Pink to Sarah Redman and her husband Michael, of Bristol. The event will help fund Hoch's plan to create two more films for her series on breast health awareness, including one documentary on male breast cancer and one on breast cancer in college-aged women.

Hoch's first breast health documentary on early detection is currently being used by the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. and is subtitled in both Spanish and Portuguese. Of the success of her films,  Hoch said she "couldn't imagine it getting so far."

"I am hoping they will find as a vaccine and that young women do not have to worry," she said. "Until then, women who are going through these tough times, when their world is upside down…they will find something enriching in these films."


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