Private Project

The Bright Side

World weary, Dublin, stand up comedienne, Kate McLaughlin is in a dark place - she wants out. Her morbid prayers are answered in the form of a cancer diagnosis. To placate her family, she begrudgingly agrees to undergo chemotherapy. Armed with staggering levels of cynicism and a plethora of blackly comic jokes, Kate gets off to a bad start with four other women she encounters in the chemo ward; four women from all walks of Irish life, whose unsolicited friendships are perfectly designed to blow open her shut down heart.

  • Ruth Meehan
    Director
  • Jean Pasley &Ruth Meehan
    Writer
  • Tony Deegan
    Producer
  • Gemma Leah Devereux
    Key Cast
    "Kate McLoughlin"
    Judy, Broken Law
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 38 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 10, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    1,375,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Ireland
  • Country of Filming:
    Ireland
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Red
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Cork Film Festival
    Cork Film Festival
    Ireland
    November 9, 2020
    World Premiere
    Audience Award CIFF 2020
  • Sonoma International Film Festival
    Sonoma International Film Festival
    United States
    March 25, 2021
    North American
    Jury Award Honourable Mention
Distribution Information
  • Break Out Pictures
    Distributor
    Country: Ireland
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Ruth Meehan

Ruth Meehan is a writer/director who has been creating multiple award-winning & nominated work for both film and television in Ireland and Britain since the early 2000’s. Ruth has written and directed four short films which have garnered several major prizes including the Special Jury Prize at the Tehran Film Festival; the Prix Canal+ at Brest; the Depict Award at the Encounters Short Film Festival in the UK; and the Kodak Prize, Raindance Film Festival, UK.
Over the past two decades Ruth has made award-winning documentaries including the groundbreaking What In The World series for RTE which won a Radharc award for her film on Child Labour in India. She was also a co-director on Imagining Ulysses', an feature-length documentary which won The Gold Hugo Award for Arts & Culture at the Chicago Intercom Film Festival and nominated for an IFTA for her direction of Primary School Musical for RTE. Along with her documentary work, Ruth has also developed four feature films with development support from Screen Ireland: Music By Water (2002); West Of Eden (2005); The Silent One (2010), and more recently The Bright Side. She also wrote the feature film, Raven On The Wing for Bedlam Productions London (The King’s Speech).
In 2019, Ruth set up Playground Pictures Ltd. with Tony Deegan to produce The Bright Side which she co-wrote, directed and exec produced and which was completed in 2020. The Bright Side is the recipient of the Audience Award at the 2020 Cork International Film Festival and the Jury Award Honorable Mention at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California.

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