# A 'hood film with no violence in it

> Serville Poblete set his coming-of-age drama in a Toronto housing complex and left out everything you expect.
- Title: A 'hood film with no violence in it · The Hollywood Reporter
- Summary: Serville Poblete set his coming-of-age drama in a Toronto housing complex and left out everything you expect. You can tell a story about a neighborhood…
- Keywords: film, tiff, toronto, filmmaking, coming of age, 'hood, violence, The Hollywood Reporter
- Source: The Hollywood Reporter — https://hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sunburn-director-interview-tiff-2026-1236695414
- Author: Etan Vlessing
- Published: 2026-09-14T17:19:59+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: film, tiff, toronto, filmmaking, coming of age
## A 'hood film, reframed
Serville Poblete's Sunburn is set in a Toronto housing complex and contains no gang violence and no police brutality. That absence is the point.
## St. James Town in summer
The story takes place in St. James Town, a downtown high-rise complex in Canada's biggest city, during a stretch of brutal summer heat.
## The blackout does the work
A citywide power outage pushes the young characters off their phones and out into the neighborhood. No screens, nowhere to be, just each other.
## Joking, teasing, roaming
What fills the runtime is hangout energy: kids ribbing one another as they wander the block trying to escape the heat. Plot takes a back seat to company.
## Trauma is not the only story
Poblete says films about the 'hood usually center drugs, violence and trauma. He calls those films important, then makes the case for a different register.

> a lot of films about the 'hood are usually about trauma and violence and drugs, which I think are important
## Premiering at Toronto
Sunburn has its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, putting a Filipino-Canadian director's warm take on his own city in front of a hometown crowd.

> I wanted to reframe what that means
## Key takeaway

You can tell a story about a neighborhood without making trauma the whole plot.