Robin Aubert's 'Kingston-Falls' premieres at Series Mania

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- Robin Aubert's six-part crime dramedy "Welcome to Kingston-Falls" world premieres in the International Panorama section at Series Mania in Lille, with the first two episodes screening ahead of a planned Radio-Canada broadcast later this year.
- Maxime Le Flaguais stars as conflicted investigator Gabriel Serpent, returning to screens after earning a 2023 Canadian Screen Award nomination for best lead performance in the film "Rodeo."
- Encore Television and Lynx Films produce the series, with Encore Television Distribution handling international sales; the ensemble also includes Marie-Ève Milot and Martin Heroux.
- The series is set in a fictional rural community inspired by Aubert's childhood in Danville, Quebec — where it was also filmed — and follows Serpent as he investigates a disfigured corpse while fighting to keep his small-town police station open.
- Aubert serves as creator, writer and director across all six episodes, drawing on personal material — including his own relationship with his father, whom he calls "Pop" — to shape Serpent's clipped dialogue and subtext-heavy scenes.
- Aubert deliberately used older, dusty-shelf cameras to recapture a grainy, early-2000s video texture, pairing it with an orange-and-brown autumnal palette he says lets beauty and ugliness coexist on screen.
Why it matters: With Encore Television Distribution controlling international sales and a Radio-Canada slot already lined up, the Series Mania premiere positions "Welcome to Kingston-Falls" as Aubert's most ambitious auteur-crossover play — a six-episode personal project from Quebec's independent sector testing whether a deeply local, small-town sensibility can travel to global buyers.




