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 and Adhocracy Media produce and deliver premium 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 verité in the field, Cohen leads Vice’s award-winning documentary team, producing groundbreaking films like Dopesick. The feature is the first documentary to uncover the street use of fentanyl and big pharma's involvement in the opioid crisis in Canada. Part of a Vice series, the film wins a Canadian Screen Award in 2017. Following this, Cohen is awarded the TELUS Feature Documentary Fund and directs the Crave Original Rat Park, a groundbreaking exploration of addiction, now included in counseling psychology curricula at universities worldwide.

After Vice, Shawney embraces 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 psychological Hulu series about cult survivors, premiering in late 2025. Cohen also writes and produces for the inaugural Paramount+ series Special Ops True, also premiering in 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