Huntington filmmaker Michael Ien Cohen's 'Humanity Stoked' has Long Island debut

A lifelong dream is coming true for a Long Island filmmaker whose award-winning debut documentary, “Humanity Stoked,” will play two local screenings this month.

“It was made for nothing by a nobody from nowhere,” writer-director Michael Ien Cohen, of Huntington, said. “That’s really the story of the film.”

In “Humanity Stoked,” Cohen uses his longtime love of skateboarding as an entree into deeper discussions with various athletes, artists and celebrities. Among the more famous names Cohen persuaded to sit for interviews are astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, artist Shepard Fairey, jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill and numerous professional skateboarders, including Tony Hawk. Cohen, 56, said he was mainly interested in exploring the idea of fear — how it affects people’s lives and how it can be overcome.

“The film is not even about skateboarding at all,” he said. “It gets into these really heavy subjects. These people are really vulnerable on camera.”

“Humanity Stoked” arose from a moment of personal revelation. A Brooklyn native whose family moved to Merrick when he was 2 years old, Cohen said he had youthful dreams of becoming a filmmaker and a humanitarian but instead wound up starting a software firm and an industrial magnet manufacturing company. Several years ago, depression set in.

“I had lived a rather fear-based life, and I’d never really tried to do anything about becoming a filmmaker or a humanitarian,” Cohen recalled. As his 40s turned into his 50s, he said, “I just had this epiphany that I couldn’t let fear rule my life anymore.”

Cohen began production in 2018, vowing that any revenue from the film would go to WhatStopsYou.org Foundation, a Plainview-based children’s charity that he launched the previous year. All crew members were hired on a volunteer basis, Cohen said, and he obtained the rights to roughly 500 pieces of music and archival footage for free. “Everything is gratis,” he said. “That’s why the credits are so long. If someone volunteered, even for just a day, all I could do was acknowledge them.”

Having already played at more than 30 film festivals around the world and won several awards, “Humanity Stoked” will hold its Long Island premiere July 15 at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre. It screens again July 20 at the Bellmore Movies and Showplace as part of the Long Island International Film Expo. Cohen will appear in person at both showings.

“If you had told me six years ago that I would be a filmmaker, let alone one traveling all over the world, I would have had you committed,” Cohen said. “The film is really about understanding what you can do in life.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman