Shawney Cohen
- Producer
- Director
- Visual Effects
Shawney Cohen is a Canadian filmmaker who began his career in computer animation, sometimes working under the name "Sean Cohen" for animated and commercial projects. His visual effects work has appeared in major motion pictures, including Resident Evil and A History of Violence.
Cohen made his feature directing debut with The Manor, a deeply personal project chronicling his upbringing at his parents' strip club near Toronto while also exploring their struggles with eating disorders. The film premiered as the opening night selection at Hot Docs and was nominated for Best International Documentary at the Zurich Film Festival.
In 2019, he directed and produced the Crave original documentary Rat Park, which examined a groundbreaking but largely forgotten addiction experiment from the 1970s. His documentary Dopesick was the first vérité feature film to investigate the street use and origins of fentanyl, part of a VICE series that won a Canadian Screen Award in 2017.
Cohen occasionally freelances for CBC and produced Hulu's How I Escaped My Cult in 2025.
Cohen made his feature directing debut with The Manor, a deeply personal project chronicling his upbringing at his parents' strip club near Toronto while also exploring their struggles with eating disorders. The film premiered as the opening night selection at Hot Docs and was nominated for Best International Documentary at the Zurich Film Festival.
In 2019, he directed and produced the Crave original documentary Rat Park, which examined a groundbreaking but largely forgotten addiction experiment from the 1970s. His documentary Dopesick was the first vérité feature film to investigate the street use and origins of fentanyl, part of a VICE series that won a Canadian Screen Award in 2017.
Cohen occasionally freelances for CBC and produced Hulu's How I Escaped My Cult in 2025.
