MANOR Press Kit 13-04-13

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THE MANOR
PRESS KIT
**OPENING NIGHT FILM HOT DOCS
20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION**
themanordocumentary.com
78 minutes, colour, 5.1 surround
Production
Six Island Productions
416-538-3455
Sales (USA)
Cinetic Media
212-627-9898
sixisland.com
cineticmedia.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
Distribution (Canada)
KinoSmith
416-992-2060
Publicity
Ingrid Hamilton
416-731-3034
kinosmith.com
gat.ca
[email protected]
[email protected]
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A peculiar Jewish family attempt to nurse their relationships
and themselves back to health while running a small-town
strip-club. (19)
SHORT SYNOPSIS (50)
When he was six, Shawney Cohen’s father bought “The Manor,” a small-town stripclub. Hoping to understand what happened to his nice Jewish family, Shawney
spends years filming this intimate tragi-comic family portrait that lays bare the nature
of dependence and love. (42)
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SYNOPSIS (100)
Shawney calls himself a filmmaker, but he's been a strip-club manager for longer.
When he was six his father bought “The Manor”, a small-town strip club. Thirty years
later, the family's lifestyle has got the better of them. While his 400-pound father
prepares for stomach-reduction surgery, his 85-pound mother has her own
complicated relationship with food. Shawney's role as struggling filmmaker and
outcast son provides a rare glimpse into a family facing the consequences of their
livelihood and dependence. Told with humor and frankness, THE MANOR is an
intimate portrait of people struggling to call themselves a family. (98)
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LONG SYNOPSIS & BACKSTORY (400)
In the early 80s, the Cohens were a tight-knit, Jewish suburban family - the very
picture of a happy family. Roger, a hardworking Israeli immigrant and Brenda, a
caring homemaker, were in love and devoted to their two sons, Shawney and
Sammy.
But soon Roger found himself struggling in a streak of bad luck. One after another,
his jobs and business ventures failed to deliver the luxurious life he had dreamed
about during his impoverished childhood. With his back against the wall, Roger
made a bold move. He bought a bar in Guelph - a small town near Toronto - and
turned it into a strip club called “The Manor” with an adjoining 32-room hotel.
The Cohen's lives would never be the same again.
Fast forward nearly thirty years to the present and it becomes clear that the peculiar
attraction/repulsion effect the strip club has had on the Cohens borders on Greek
tragedy. While the lifestyle it affords ties them together, it also serves to push them
apart as a constant source of stress and embarrassment. Over the years father
Roger fully embraced the business, adopting a Tony Soprano-like swagger,
penchant for vulgar language and explosive temper. The Manor became Roger’s
whole life, and by extension influenced the entire family. After graduating high school
the youngest son Sammy followed in his father’s footsteps choosing to begin
working at The Manor while still in his teens. Meanwhile, mother Brenda began to
distance herself from the business, starting down an acute anorexic spiral that would
come to threaten her life.
At the heart of the story is the eldest son, Shawney Cohen, a struggling filmmaker by
trade and the family outsider. At first rejecting the family business, Shawney headed
to Toronto to go to university and find work. But a decade later after becoming
frustrated with life in the city, Shawney came back to The Manor, intending to stay
just long enough until he get back on his feet. And so Shawney too got drawn into
the allure of the family business, spending years both managing the bar and filming.
Told from the unique perspective of an insider, THE MANOR is an astonishingly
intimate and rarely seen portrait of a family facing the consequences of their
livelihood and the demons that come along with it. (383)
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THE CHARACTERS
Shawney Cohen – Son / Filmmaker / Strip Club Manager
Shawney discovered rather early on that his artistic desires left him the odd person
out in his business-minded family. Since his teens he started to drift away from the
family and the strip-club business. Later, in his 30s, after quietly avoiding the family
business for the better part of a decade, Shawney took a hiatus from his old life,
leaving a career in animation, an apartment and a long-term relationship in Toronto
behind in order to return “home” to The Manor and reconnect with his family.
Shawney worked at the bar for a long time before ever feeling the urge to pick up a
camera and more formally document the eccentricities of his immediate kin. It is
through Shawney's journey and vain attempt to try to repair relations that we
discover the characters and moments in the film. In a weird twist of fate, Shawney
begins to worry that The Manor is the only glue holding the family together.
Roger Cohen – Father / Strip Club Owner
Roger is an overweight, cigar smoking, small-town Tony-Soprano type. He is an
Israeli immigrant who moved to Toronto with nothing, clawing and fighting his way to
financial success. Starting out as a cab driver and bus boy, he is now the proud
owner of a strip club and motel in Guelph, a small town near Toronto. Roger is loud
and domineering but loves his family and his business, and unilaterally decides what
he thinks is best for both. Since turning 60 Roger has become obsessed with his
health and lifestyle choices and is determined to have stomach surgery to reduce his
weight.
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Brenda Cohen – Mother / Daughter of Holocaust Survivors
Brenda is wife to Roger and mom to Shawney and Sammy. Though shockingly thin,
outwardly she appears rather content with her life, tending to her family and home
near the strip club. Both her parents were holocaust survivors and their recent
passing has affected her deeply. Brenda is obsessed with food and is constantly
pushing it on the family. When confronted, Brenda admits to having anorexia with the
nearly three decades at the strip club playing a major factor. She is reluctant to seek
help for her disease and the family is afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t.
Sammy Cohen – Younger Brother / Strip Club Manager
Sammy is the charming, handsome, and business-minded younger brother to
Shawney. He is always well-dressed, takes pride in the kind of car he drives and the
beautiful girlfriends he dates. He is much more comfortable at The Manor doing his
job than older brother Shawney. He has helped run The Manor since he finished
high school and seems destined to eventually take it over when Roger retires.
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The Manor
An historic gothic mansion built in the late 1800s, The Manor, formerly known as
Sleeman House, is the old family home of Canadian beer mogul George Sleeman,
rumoured to have supplied Al Capone during prohibition. Purchased by Roger
Cohen in the early 1980s, it has become a notorious strip club with a 32-room motel
attached, principally rented to the dancers and other transient characters.
But with the growth of internet pornography and the rampant rise of massage
parlours, the strip-club business has changed over the last decade. Whatever
glamour there was in the industry is now long gone. Roger finds himself at a
crossroads wondering what to do with the business. He has been dangling the idea
of turning the building over to condo developers but he will not make any decision
lightly. As he sees it The Manor is what keeps both his family and his pride intact.
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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Over the last few years I have been wearing two hats: that of son and strip club
manager, and the other of film-maker. I now realize I have probably been working on
this film my entire life. What I originally intended as a part-time summer job at my
family's strip club, would end up becoming a full-time job spanning years, a new
understanding of my family, and now, a documentary.
I grew up in a suburban Jewish neighborhood in Toronto. When I was a boy my
friends’ parents had furniture stores and pharmacies. My father bought a strip club.
The implications of that purchase have had a profound impact on me and almost
everyone close to me. My entire family works at the strip club or is somehow
involved in the running of the business and the film provides an intimate portrait of
the consequences of that livelihood.
THE MANOR aims to be an examination of human nature, addiction and the family
ties that bind. The film took close to three years to shoot and over a year to edit.
From beginning to end, the process of making the film was extremely personal and
difficult. Its intention is to make the viewer see a little piece of themselves through
my family's love for one another and our dysfunction.
I’m extremely proud of my family for being so honest and putting themselves out
there for the world to see. Given the nature of our business and our personal
struggles, being part of this film was a brave journey for all of us. I can only hope
there’s an important and beautiful message that can be learned from our story.
Shawney Cohen
Director
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CREDITS
Directed by
SHAWNEY COHEN
Produced by
PAUL SCHERZER
Co-Director
MIKE GALLAY
Executive Producers
PAUL SCHERZER
LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO
Commissioning Editor, TVO
JANE JANKOVIC
Editor
SETH POULIN
Composer
JIM GUTHRIE
Sound Design
URBAN POST
Produced by Six Island Productions in association with TVO,
and with the assistance of the Shaw Media-Hot Docs Fund and the
Tribeca Film Institute.
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TEAM BIOS
SHAWNEY COHEN
Director
Shawney Cohen is a Toronto-based filmmaker who also manages his father's strip
club. Shawney started his career in computer animation and his work has appeared
in dozens of major motion pictures. In 2009, Shawney shot and directed the awardnominated short documentary Tagged which he produced with the National Film
Board of Canada and TVO. THE MANOR is Shawney's feature directing debut.
(61)
MIKE GALLAY
Co-Director
Mike Gallay is an award-winning writer and director whose darkly comic work
examines and satirizes contemporary times. He has worked extensively out of
Toronto and Los Angeles. Prior to THE MANOR, he directed and produced Tagged
with Shawney Cohen for the National Film Board of Canada.
(46)
PAUL SCHERZER
Producer / Exec Producer
Founder and president of Six Island Productions, Paul has produced a host of
award-winning dramatic features, documentaries and interactive projects playing
festivals from Toronto to Cannes, Sundance to Dubai and selling into all markets.
(34)
LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO
Exec Producer
Laurie produced the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary “Finishing Heaven,” as
well as two HBO/Cinemax documentaries about her teacher Frank McCourt. She
directed the IFC documentary “Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal
Tale” (Independent Spirit Award), and is currently directing “Lowline”. Shapiro has
also authored four novels.
(48)
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