Ben Hohener is a Toronto-based writer & director drawn to stories that inhabit the uncanny. His work spans short films, feature-length screenplays, and literary fiction, all completely independently produced, focusing on experimental approaches to narrative.Hohener likewise prioritizes setting, often imbuing Ontario wilderness and Toronto urban grit with equal parts soft nostalgia and frightening darkness.

His debut short film, Some Like It Rotten, premiered at the Toronto Indie Horror Fest in October 2025, as well as the Shock Stock Horror Festival, and since then he has been hard at work crafting a feature-length project:FIVE LEAF CLOVER, a psychological thriller with a unique twist he plans on directing himself in the upcoming year.
More information to come soon! (including a proof-of-concept)

Inspired by the day-to-day abstractions that embody our lives, Hohener prioritizes humanistic themes in his work: deep empathy, agency,
relationship to oneself and the forces that attempt to crush these inherent qualities, often manifested in surreal, visually-striking fashion.In the literary world, he is wrapping up a novel-length horror anthology he began post-COVID titled
My Brain Decaying on a Pile of Rocks

Film

Some Like It RottenShort (2025)

Sober CrueltyShort (2024)

SLIR Trailer

from Some Like It Rotten (2025)

farmland

2-minute short film farmland (2025)

Literature

Contributions
& Other Work

Journalism

Writer for the Annex Gleaner, a monthly published local newspaper serving Toronto’s greater Annex neighbourhood
Annex Gleaner
Writer for Postmedia Network's Healthing, the premier destination to inform, educate and connect readers to the latest healthcare news and issues that matter most to Canadians
Healthing