The 20th Hotdocs Film Festival in Toronto will open with the world premiere of The Manor, Shawney Cohen’s intimate doc about growing up in the family business of running a strip club. Toronto-based Shawney Cohen, under the name Sean Cohen, has an international reputation for his special effects and animation work in films such as Dead Silence (2007), A History of Violence (2005), Resident evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Dawn of the Dead (2004).

The Manor is Cohen’s first feature-length documentary and he reveals that filmmaking is where his heart lies although he has managed the family Strip Club in Guelph, Ontario for many years. This very personal story features the tragi-comic portrait of his family’s struggles and their shocking transformations over 30 years since his father bought the strip club and the motel next door. His first feature confirms Cohen’s maturing talent and reinforces his emerging status as a filmmaker. I was disappointed that he missed the opportunity to add an important layer to his narrative by providing more insight into the more mysterious side of strip clubs, the shadowy world of sex, drugs and family grudges and the potential double lives of owners, customers and stripers.

Deep down Shawney has always known the family business is not his gig, “My brother is more comfortable here than I am, everyone likes being at The Manor, I know my brother does and I know my father loves his bar…I am on the fence.”

Shot over the course of three years, The Manor focuses on the ups and downs of Shawney Cohen’s dysfunctional family including his 400-pound father awaiting stomach reduction surgery and his 85-pound, anorexic mother. His role as filmmaker and son provides an astonishingly intimate and rarely seen perspective on a family values, livelihood, dependence and love. The documentary portrays Shawney’s unease with his environment:

“At 13, I asked for hockey passes for my Bar Mitzvah. Instead I got a lap dance.”

The Manor is co-directed by Mike Gallay and produced by Paul Scherzer. It is touching, honest, and sprinkled with humor.

The Manor is the recipient of a Shaw Media-Hot Docs Completion Fund Grant (2011), and a grant from the Tribeca Film Institute Documentary Fund (2012). It has also been recognized as the IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) Forum Round-Table Pitch Winner (2011).

Christophe Chanel

THURSDAY, APRIL 25 7:00 PM (industry only screening) BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA