The words ‘small-town family business’ tend to conjure up a twee image. Convenience stores and manual trades, homely restaurants and pet shops. However, for Shawney Cohen, the family business was a strip club. When he was six years old, his father bought a bar near Toronto and turned it into a strip club called The Manor with an adjoining 32-room hotel. It was a bold move made following a streak of bad luck; a last-ditch attempt to secure the quality of life he had imagined for himself. The family would never be the same again.In his debut feature-length film, Cohen looks at the impact of the decision 30 years on. His 400-pound father Roger is preparing for stomach-reduction surgery, his 85-pound mother Brenda is struggling with anorexia, and his brother Sammy is preparing to follow in his dad’s footsteps after beginning work at The Manor in his teens. Meanwhile, Shawny attempts to sort through the pieces the only way he knows how. While most documentaries set around strip clubs, understandably, tend to focus on the club, The Manor relegates it to scenery, bringing into focus a tragi-comic portrait of the unlikely family behind the scenes.Originally released in 2013, The Manor opened Hot Docs, won the Tribeca Film Institute Documentary Fund, and was nominated at the Zurich Film Festival. Here, VICE is running an exclusive uncut version for members only.Watch it and read our interview with Shawney below.VICE: Was there a point growing up where you became aware that your life was maybe a bit unorthodox? Shawney Cohen: Probably when I was in grade eight and told the other kids about my bar mitzvah present—it was a lap dance. I said it like it was no big deal, but that was me trying to play it cool. Her name was Sparkle, and halfway through I asked her to be my girlfriend. She just giggled. I guess she wasn’t looking for anything serious.The documentary feels very fly on the wall. Your family seems to be aware of the camera, but not especially conscious of it. Did they know you were making a documentary about them?At first, I wasn’t sure what my intentions were. I was still figuring out how to be a filmmaker, but knew enough not to force it. Initially, I’d film little tests, and one of them was of my father on the phone. He wasn’t speaking English and it sounded like he was explaining how to bribe cops in the Middle East. He just drifted into the lens, completely unaware of the camera. I’m sure he thought, ‘No one will ever see whatever this idiot son of mine is doing.’ That’s when I realized the best approach was to make a fly-on-the-wall vérité film. Films about strip clubs tend to zero in on the dancers and their experiences, whereas in your film, The Manor is simply a backdrop for the family drama. Was there a reason you chose that focus? I wonder if that’s just what it felt like to you? It was never a film about a strip club. It was a film about my family, just set in a strip club. When my co-director, Mike Gallay, and the producers decided to really commit to it, it became obvious this could only be a film about my family. I remember telling our executive producer, Laurie Shapiro, that my mom was anorexic, my dad was a couple hundred pounds overweight, and oh, our family also owns a strip club. Laurie just looked at me and said, “How can you not tell that story?” Most people probably have an idea of what kind of constitution it takes to work in a strip club, but what kind of constitution does it take to run one? A high tolerance for chaos and the ability to see 3.30AM as a reasonable time to discuss inventory. THE MANORSHAWNEY COHEN FILMING HIS DADWhat did the dancers typically think of your dad? Most of the dancers might not have even known who my dad was. Strip clubs are like train stations, people come and go, sometimes mid-shift. Most dancers were freelancers, working a few nights in our club before moving on to the next place. The club had a handful of regular dancers, but it wasn’t unusual for other dancers to hit five or six clubs in a few weeks. So a lot of the dancers probably just saw my dad as just another figure in the background, watching the hockey game at the end of the bar. How do you think growing up in and around a strip club affected your outlook on sex and relationships? The answer most people expect is that it completely warped me, that I thought connection came with a cover charge and a two-drink minimum. But honestly, not as much as you might think and not as much as PornHub affects viewers today. It certainly informed my creative aesthetic in film and writing; seeing at close quarters the Bukowski-esque cast of characters that eddied around the strip joint left me with a very gritty sensibility. “I was in grade eight and told the other kids about my bar mitzvah present—it was a lap dance. I said it like it was no big deal, but that was me trying to play it cool. Her name was Sparkle, and halfway through I asked her to be my girlfriend. She just giggled. I guess she wasn’t looking for anything serious.”There’s a scene I love towards the end where you’ve got all this stuff going on with your family and you’re sitting in a chair opposite two strippers who are waiting for the club to get going, probably thinking about their own issues. Everyone is silent. What was your own relationship like to the dancers?People seem fascinated by the idea of working in a strip club, but really, it’s a job like any other, and a bar job at that, just with cheaper lighting and more body glitter. The same drama, the same gossip. People complained about not making enough money, someone stealing their customer, and why Sheila gets to bring her teacup chihuahua to work like it’s an emotional support handbag. But really, everyone’s just trying to pay rent and convince themselves tomorrow will be different. There’s a certain sadness to strip clubs in that respect. What do you think you’ve learned from spending so much time working in one? What role do you think they play in society—in small towns in particular? One slow night, I ended up talking to a divorce attorney over martinis. I’d never met him before, but he had that calm, seen-it-all look people get when they’ve spent their lives untangling other people’s disasters. He told me cheating accounts for 59.6 percent of divorces. Then he said something that stuck: Would you rather your partner get a few lap dances from someone they’ll never see again, or fall in love with their co-worker? Hard to argue with that logic. And it goes both ways, on male stripper nights the champagne room is a madhouse. So yes, there’s sadness in strip clubs. But there’s also honesty. People go there chasing connection, even when they know it’s temporary.Early in the film you mention you weren’t comfortable working at The Manor, but you’d been there a while. There’s a sense throughout the film of people being sort of resigned to their roles, or their flaws, and trying to make the best of things. Do you think that’s a small-town mentality thing, something specific to your family, or maybe a mix of both?My unease with working at the strip club was due to the fact that it was weirdly comfortable, and that can be a trap. Do you stay where life feels familiar, or risk leaving to chase something uncertain? In a family business, everyone has their place, and mine just didn’t fit anymore. I wanted to make films, but it took me a long time to admit that meant walking away. Your parents have a tense but close relationship. How did they feel watching it?Before the film was released, I rented a fancy theater in Toronto I couldn’t really afford so my parents could watch it all alone. Just the two of them, sitting in the middle row of an empty room. I had no idea what to expect. When the credits rolled, my mother turned to my father and said, “Roger, that’s exactly you.” Mission accomplished. It’s tricky work, narrativizing your own family. Were there any particular concerns you had while putting the film together? My biggest concern was how much truth my family could actually handle. Turning them into characters sometimes felt like this weird kind of cinéma vérité betrayal, even if it came from love. In the end, I figured honesty was the only fair move; to show everyone, myself included, as we really were. Flawed, funny, and just trying to hold it together. “There’s sadness in strip clubs. But there’s also honesty. People go there chasing connection, even when they know it’s temporary.”The documentary was made 12 years ago. Where is everyone? What, if anything, has changed since you made it? My father and brother are still running The Manor. My dad never did sell it. I moved on and kept making films. In 2021, my mother relapsed and passed away. The pandemic was hard on her. I miss her every day, especially the small things I used to take for granted.How do you feel about the film, looking back?So many emotions, looking back. The feature version played all over the world and I’ll always remember being on stage for the Q&As with my mother at the Zurich film festival or Hot Docs in Toronto. Incredible memories. In many ways the production taught me how to be a filmmaker—some of the vérité experiments I tried during production I still use in my work today. But I’m also glad I didn’t take my father’s advice and make a sequel. The end scene of you all having dinner together is great. Could you tell me a bit about the day that was shot? We shot so many dinners over the course of months, so I’m not even sure when that scene was shot. By then everyone was so used to the camera it just felt like another family dinner. It wasn’t until the edit that I saw how much quiet, accidental beauty was in that moment. The whole experience made me fall in love with vérité filmmaking, with the way real life sneaks up on you when you stop trying to stage it. Maybe that’s why the film still connects with people.Follow Emma on X: @emmaggarlandShawney Cohen is part of Toronto’s “video store generation” of filmmakers, raised on VHS rentals and late fees. He studied visual effects and digital media in college and got his start on Zack Snyder’s first film in 2004. For much of his career, he produced content for Vice Media, helping make VICE.com a household name. His feature directing debut, The Manor, opened Hot Docs, won the Tribeca Film Institute Documentary Fund, and was nominated at the Zurich Film Festival. He went on to direct Dopesick and Rat Park and has written, produced, and directed for Hulu, Discovery, CBC, Paramount, FOX, and Amazon.The post Member Exclusive: Watch ‘The Manor,’ a Film About a Family-Owned Strip Club appeared first on VICE.