Serville Poblete’s short film, Lovebound, premiered at the Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle 

A passion for the arts led George Brown College (GBC) graduate Serville Poblete on the path of producing a short film, tackling issues of love and sexuality.

“In high school, I was into the creative courses like English, literature, creative writing, and I was never into math and science”, said Poblete, who graduated from the video design and production program at GBC.

He was a part of the first graduating class of this two-year program.

Poblete pursued basketball in the Philippines, a childhood goal of his, just before he decided to switch to film making.

However, it did not work out for him which left him feeling lost, not knowing what to do next.

It was his sister who suggested that he return to writing.

Having an interest in script writing, he wrote his first script and thought it was terrible.

Although he was not exactly happy with what he produced, he loved the whole process of writing and the freedom to create his own story, all while revealing to the world his take on a subject.

It took him a month to write Lovebound, a short film crafted for his thesis project over a process of ten drafts.

“I came (up) with the idea in my third semester but I didn’t start writing until like maybe March and we started shooting in April,” he explained.

This short film premiered on Oct.27 at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY).

It debuted in the Come as You Are category.

“It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,” Poblete said as he met with other film makers at the festival which took place in Seattle, Washington.

The seven-minute film is about a woman who comes to realize her feelings and emotions of love are traced to a woman at the train station.

“It’s a love story,” Poblete said.

The time to make the film spanned across two days but it was really more like four to six hours in the train station, an hour for the school scene and four hours for the apartment scene.

“As a director, you’re kind of like the point guard like in basketball,” Poblete said who worked to make sure everyone on the team was “on the same page” as he saw his script turn into a film.

Poblete chose to film most of his scenes at the subway on purpose.

“I think it fits the story well but also as a filmmaker, I wanted to challenge myself”, Poblete said, who learned from the many mistakes he made in the process.

Trains stopped by every minute or so, leaving him and the crew about 30 seconds at a time to film, with commuters constantly walking by when they filmed.

“As a filmmaker with a low budget you have to make the sacrifices and work with what you have,” Poblete said.

Poblete wanted this film to address the assumptions people make about the LGBTQ community and their search for love.

“Everyone will always struggle trying to find who they really love and who they’re supposed to be with, and it’s not based on your gender or identity, so everyone deals with love the same way I think”, Poblete explained, “I wanted this (Lovebound) to be relatable.”