TORONTO – Basketball has always been part of the Kabongo family. Unfortunately, so has cancer in recent years.
After his mother Nene was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, Toronto actor/producer Emmanuel Kabongo launched “TIFF Battleground: Hoops Against Cancer” to raise awareness and funds for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.
Friday marks the third edition of the fundraiser with a cast of celebrities joining Kabongo at Toronto’s Regent Park Community Centre.
Those expected to attend include actors Lovell Adams-Gray, Ashton James, Tommy James Murphy and Percy Anane-Dwumfour, Seattle Kraken goaltender Matt Murray, producer/writer/director Troy Crossfield, musician Kemdilo, director Torrin Blades, basketball player Emani Clough, DJ Mel Boogie and Drew Smoothy.
After Kabongo’s mother’s initial diagnosis, doctors found the cancer had spread to her liver and brain. She was given just six months to live.
“But thank God, she’s still alive today,” said Kabongo.
He decided to use his connections behind and in front of the camera to launch the fundraiser “to give back to Princess Margaret because they’ve done so much for my mother.”
Myck Kabongo, Emmanuel’s brother, is also taking part in the fundraiser. He played collegiate basketball at the University of Texas and had brief stints with the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs before playing overseas.
He has also served as an assistant coach with the NBA G League’s Salt Lake City Stars.
Another brother, Jonathan, played basketball at Virginia Tech while sister Vanessa played at the University of Delaware.
“My mother was a basketball mom,” said Emmanuel Kabongo. “So she was at every game, travelled long distance. Crossing the border, driving all the way to New York, driving all the way to New Jersey or Delaware … to support my siblings with their basketbalI journeys. So it made her really really happy and content.”
Initially she did not share with the family how little time doctors had given her to live. After learning the fact, Emmanuel chose to name the fundraiser Battleground.
“Sometimes we fight silently and nobody knows about the things that cancer patients are dealing with,” he said. “I just thought this would be a great way to merge basketball and charity.”
Kabongo played varsity basketball himself while attending George Brown College. But after taking a theatre course, he got the acting bug and starting doing film and TV workshops outside of school.
At the end of his second year at George Brown, he was offered a basketball scholarship by the University of New Brunswick. But after seeing a short student film he had done was posted on YouTube, he opted to focus on acting.
He has since appeared in such TV series as “Nikita,” “Call Me Fitz,” “Murdoch Mysteries,” “Hemlock Grove,” “Rookie Blue,” “Quantico,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” “Frankie Drake Mysteries” and “21 Thunder.”
Kabongo earned Canadian Screen Award nominations for the web series “Teenagers” in 2016, for the TV film “Death She Wrote” in 2022 and the web series “Chateau Laurier” in 2023.
A graduate of the Actors Conservatory Program at the Canadian Film Centre in 2015, he is currently a resident there as part of the Producers’ Lab.
“Sway” and “Welcome,” two films he produced and stars in, are coming out later this year
Born in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Kabongo and his family fled the civil war when he was six. His father went to Toronto, while his mother and siblings landed in South Africa,
Kabongo was 11 when the family made it to Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2025.
