Shawney Cohen is a renowned Canadian filmmaker with a diverse background in computer animation, having worked under the pseudonym "Sean Cohen" for various animated and commercial projects. His impressive visual effects work has been featured in prominent motion pictures, including Resident Evil and A History of Violence.
Cohen's feature directing debut, The Manor, is a deeply personal project that delves into his childhood, exploring his upbringing at his parents' strip club near Toronto and their struggles with eating disorders. The film premiered as the opening night selection at the prestigious Hot Docs festival and received a nomination for Best International Documentary at the Zurich Film Festival.
In 2019, Cohen directed and produced the Crave original documentary Rat Park, which sheds light on a groundbreaking but largely forgotten addiction experiment from the 1970s. His documentary Dopesick is 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 has also ventured into television, occasionally freelancing for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and producing the Hulu documentary How I Escaped My Cult in 2025.
