Ad·hoc·ra·cy
noun
English definition /Adˈhäkrəsē/AdhocracyMedia©
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A boundary-pushing Canadian production company founded by filmmaker Shawney Cohen.
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A philosophy rooted in bold storytelling, innovative development, and the belief that creativity thrives without bureaucracy—a concept introduced in the book Future Shock and embraced by visionaries like YouTube and Netflix.
(See also: the future of filmmaking.)


Shawney Cohen & Adhocracy Media develop and produce unscripted content for production companies, networks and strands worldwide.
About Shawney Cohen

A Canadian producer who swaps a hockey stick for a camera, Shawney Cohen builds a documentary career shaped by meticulous story-editing and a focus on cultivating strong relationships with participants. Over five influential years producing for vice.com, his content garners over 100,000,000 views. Known for an exceptional ability to capture vérité in the field, Cohen leads Vice’s award-winning digital documentary team, producing groundbreaking films like Dopesick. The feature is the first documentary to expose the street use of fentanyl and Big Pharma's role in Canada’s overdose crisis. As part of a Viceland series that wins a Canadian Screen Award in 2017, Dopesick is rebranded as Fentanyl: The Drug Deadlier than Heroin for YouTube, where it generates over 12 million views. The film is acknowledged by Jane Philpott, Canada’s Health Minister, and just months later, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act is passed in Canadian Parliament, offering legal protection for those seeking emergency help during an overdose.
Following this, Cohen receives the TELUS Feature Documentary Fund and directs the Crave Original Rat Park in 2019—a groundbreaking exploration of addiction that’s now part of counseling psychology curricula at universities worldwide. Watch the first five minutes of the film here.

After Vice, Shawney takes on freelance production roles, series-producing ten hours of true crime for Discovery ID in 2022, directing an award-winning personal documentary, and traveling across the U.S. to supervise field production for a Hulu series about cult survivors, set to premiere in February 2025. Cohen also collaborates with Bright North Studios, writing and producing for the inaugural Paramount+ series Special Ops True, slated for release in late 2025.

Cohen’s directing debut, The Manor, is a deeply personal project that chronicles his upbringing at his parents' strip club near Toronto, while also exploring their struggles with eating disorders. The feature, nominated for Best International Documentary at the Zurich Film Festival, premieres at Hot Docs in 2013 and receives the Tribeca Film Institute Documentary Prize. Adhocracy Media is established following The Manor's release, reflecting Cohen’s commitment to innovative Cinéma vérité storytelling.

Shawney Cohen resides in Hamilton, Canada and can be reached at: shawney@adhocracymedia.com
Watch samples of his work here: Vimeo