About

Ben Shweky is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker whose work blends poetic realism and dark comedy—all with an eye for the absurdly human. With roots in both documentary and narrative cinema, Shweky creates films that feel intimate and expansive—stories grounded in lived experience yet heightened by touches of magical realism and playful surrealism.

His projects span a wide creative spectrum: from the sweeping docudrama series From Bean to Bar: The Untold History of Chocolate—an ambitious global chronicle of cacao's journey from sacred Mesoamerican ritual to modern commodity—to a growing slate of short films set in South Brooklyn and Southern France. These shorts, including The Yellow Umbrella, The Sandman of Brighton,An Encounter on the Q and The Disappearance of Lionel Horowitz, demonstrate Shweky's fascination with memory, identity, and the strange humor of everyday life.

Drawing inspiration from cinematic masters like Fellini, Godard, and Ken Burns while filtering their influence through his own idiosyncratic lens, Shweky crafts films that are visually striking yet deeply human. His style merges meticulous composition with improvisational spontaneity, producing work that is both formally bold and emotionally resonant.

Beyond storytelling, Shweky is also committed to the craft and business of independent cinema. He often works on shoestring budgets, building worlds with resourcefulness and ingenuity, while simultaneously developing large-scale international productions designed for streaming platforms. This duality—nimble experimentation alongside ambitious scope—defines his practice as a filmmaker navigating the contemporary landscape.

Shweky's work is ultimately about connection: between cultures, histories, and individuals. Whether chronicling the bittersweet realities of the global chocolate trade or following a lonely writer's eerie encounter on a New York subway, his films invite audiences to see the extraordinary within the ordinary, the comic within the tragic, and the human within the mythic.

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