Wikipedia

Emmanuel Kabongo

Emmanuel Kabongo (born December 25, 1986) is a Canadian actor and film producer.[1][2]

Emmanuel Kabongo
Kabongo in 2020
Born
Emmanuel Kabongo

(1986-12-25) December 25, 1986 (age 37)
Lubumbashi, Zaire
EducationCanadian Film Centre
Occupation(s)Actor, producer
Years active2009–present

Born and raised in Zaire, now present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kabongo immigrated to Canada and began his acting career as an extra before achieving recognition for his performance as the lead protagonist in the Toronto-based web series Teenagers (2014–2017), for which he earned his first Canadian Screen Award nomination.[3]

Kabongo subsequently became known for his performances in the CBC Television series 21 Thunder (2017) and Frankie Drake Mysteries (2017–2018) and in films such as The Animal Project (2013), Antibirth (2016), and Brown Girl Begins (2017). He played a gladiator in Paul W. S. Anderson's Pompeii (2014) and has guest-starred in television series such as Murdoch Mysteries (2013) and Star Trek: Discovery (2020). In 2023, he played a supporting role in the sci-fi thriller film Simulant. In 2024, he co-produced and starred in the independent feature film Sway.[4][5]

Kabongo has earned three Canadian Screen Award nominations throughout his career, in 2016, 2022 and 2023, first for his performance in Teenagers, and subsequently for his performances in the television film Death She Wrote and in the web series Chateau Laurier.

Early life

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Kabongo was born and raised in Lubumbashi, a city in Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo).[2][6][7] Years later, Kabongo relocated with his family to South Africa during the war.[6][7] He has four brothers, including basketball player Myck Kabongo, and one sister.[6][7]

In the 1990s, Kabongo immigrated to Toronto with his family.[7][8][9] Kabongo's father often worked as an extra in film and television, which exposed Kabongo to show business at a young age.[7][8][9] In school, Kabongo played competitive basketball; he later turned down a basketball scholarship from the University of New Brunswick to pursue acting.[6] Kabongo also struggled with scoliosis in his youth.[6]

Before he began pursuing acting, Kabongo worked several jobs, including at a daycare, a Foot Locker, at the Canadian National Exhibition, and vacuuming floors and cleaning toilets at a train station.[8][9]

Career

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Kabongo began his acting career in 2009, appearing in a little seen short film,[6][7] before seeking out work as an extra on Canadian television series such as Nikita and Flashpoint.[6] One of Kabongo's early background actor jobs was on the hit 2004 film Mean Girls.[6][7] Kabongo's first role in a full-length feature film came in 2013 with the release of The Animal Project, directed by Ingrid Veninger. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received generally positive reviews.[10]

 
Kabongo in 2016

Throughout the 2010s, Kabongo guest-starred in a variety of television programs, including Call Me Fitz (2012), Murdoch Mysteries (2013), Rookie Blue (2013–2014), and Quantico (2015).[11][9] He completed an actor's residency at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre in 2015.[12]

In 2014, Kabongo portrayed a gladiator in Paul W. S. Anderson's romantic historical disaster film Pompeii. The film won the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Golden Screen Award for 2014 as the year's top-grossing Canadian film.[13]

Alongside filmmaker M. H. Murray, Kabongo co-produced the first season of the web series Teenagers.[1][2][14] In 2013, Murray approached Kabongo with the scripts and asked him to help produce the series; they subsequently cast the rest of the characters together using only actors from Toronto.[15] Louis Chunovic of Playback published a piece on the series, writing that "the young creators of Teenagers had to have plenty of luck, pluck, talent, and grit to get this far. And that portends a Hollywood ending".[14] Kabongo also starred as the lead male protagonist in the series.[16] Teenagers received positive reviews from critics and was frequently compared to the Degrassi franchise and the UK television series Skins.[17][18] The series amassed more than 10 million combined views on YouTube over the course of three seasons, from 2014 to 2017.[19] For his performance in the second season of Teenagers, Kabongo earned his first Canadian Screen Award nomination.[2][20]

In 2016, Kabongo produced and starred in A Man's Story, a short film for which he received funding from bravoFACT.[21] The short film premiered at the ReelWorld Film Festival.[22] That year, he also played a supporting role in Antibirth, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released on September 2, 2016 in the U.S., by IFC Midnight.[23]

 
Kabongo at a Canadian Film Centre event in 2017

In September 2016, CBC announced it had commissioned a one-hour drama series that follows the star players of an under-21 soccer academy in Montreal, titled 21 Thunder, with Kabongo slated to star as one of the lead characters, an Ivory Coast mid-fielder named Junior Lolo.[24][25] The series premiered in Canada on July 31, 2017, to generally positive reviews.[26] Also that year, Kabongo appeared in three episodes of the CBC series Frankie Drake Mysteries as a boxer named Moses,[27] and he starred opposite Mouna Traoré in Brown Girl Begins, a post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Sharon Lewis.[28]

In 2020, he starred in an episode of the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery as V’Kir.[29] That year, he also played a supporting role in the Canadian political comedy film Québexit, which premiered at the Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival in September 2020.[30]

Kabongo received a second Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2022, for his leading performance in the television film Death She Wrote.[2][31] He received a third nomination in 2023 for this supporting performance in the web series Chateau Laurier.[2][32][33][34] He won several other awards for his performance in Chateau Laurier at web series festivals.

In 2022, he was cast in April Mullen’s sci-fi thriller, Hello Stranger.[35] That film, later retitled Simulant, was released theatrically in Canada by Mongrel Media on April 7, 2023.[36][37][38] Kabongo was featured in the film alongside a cast that included Sam Worthington and Simu Liu.[36]

In 2024, Kabongo starred in and produced the low-budget independent drama feature film Sway.[4][39][5][40][41] Kabongo described the film as a "wild rollercoaster."[42][43][44]

Influences

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Kabongo found early acting inspiration in action films from the 1990s that his mother showed him as a child.[45] In an interview with CBC Arts, Kabongo said that "taking acting serious came from watching how my mom reacted to films of the '90s ... [She] loves Denzel, Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone... My mom watched all those movies growing up, and knowing how that made her feel, I just wanted to do the same thing for her."[45] Kabongo has cited Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Mahershala Ali, Viola Davis, and Daniel Day-Lewis as acting inspirations.[7]

Personal life

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Kabongo was active during the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in summer 2020.[46] In an interview with Harry Rosen, he said that "it’s important to me as a Black man to stand up for what is right, supporting the cause against police brutality."[7]

Kabongo became engaged to his girlfriend, Raquel Melnichuk, in December 2021.[47] They were married the following year.[48]

Kabongo is a Christian.[49]

Accolades

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Year Association Category Nominated work Result
2013 African Entertainment Awards Best African Actor Self Won
2014 Los Angeles Web Series Festival[50] Outstanding Drama Series Teenagers Won
2014 Black Canadian Awards Best Male Actor Self Nominated
2015 Black Canadian Awards Best Male Actor Self Nominated
2016 ReelWorld Film Festival Impact Award A Man's Story Won
2016 4th Canadian Screen Awards[51] Best Performance in a Program or Series Produced for Digital Media Teenagers Nominated
2017 International Academy of Web Television[52] Best Male Performance – Drama Teenagers Nominated
2017 AfroGlobal Television Excellence Awards Rising Star Award Self Won
2019 ReelWorld Film Festival Trailblazer Award Self Won
2022 10th Canadian Screen Awards[31] Lead Actor, Television Film or Miniseries Death She Wrote Nominated
2023 11th Canadian Screen Awards[32] Supporting Performance, Web Program or Series Chateau Laurier Nominated

Filmography

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Film

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Year Title Role Notes
2009 The Red Pearl John Minor role
2011 Night Express Crazy Billy Minor role
2013 The Animal Project Ray Main role
2014 Pompeii African Gladiator Minor role
2016 The Other Half Officer James Supporting role
Antibirth Luke Supporting role
A Man's Story Kam Eganda bravoFACT short film, lead role, also producer
2017 Brown Girl Begins Tony Lead role
2018 Extracurricular Mike Vanden Supporting role
2019 Run This Town Abe Supporting Role
2020 Québexit James Brodie
2021 Death She Wrote Rand Tollson
2023 Simulant Joshua
2023 Write Place, Write Time Daniel Rose
2024 Sway Sway Also producer
2024 Beautiful Wedding Buzz

Television

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Year Title Role Notes
2010 Breakout George Hyatt 1 episode
Forensic Factor Jack 1 episode
Flashpoint Kevin 1 episode
Nikita Safwani's Bodyguard #4 1 episode
2011 Christmas Magic Chef #1 Television film
InSecurity Shinka 1 episode
2012 Cybergeddon FBI agent #1 2 episode
Call Me Fitz Joe 1 episode
2013 Murdoch Mysteries Al 1 episode
Mayday First Officer Beyene 1 episode
Black Actress Jessie Web series: 1 episode
2014 Defiance EMC Soldier 1 episode
The Ron James Show Actor 2 episode
2013-2014 Rookie Blue Shay Bishop 2 episodes
2014–2017 Teenagers  T Lead role, Web series: 22 episodes
2015 Hemlock Grove Marshall 2 episodes
Quantico Kamran Tahan 1 episode
2017 21 Thunder Junior Lolo Lead role; 8 episodes
2017–2019 Frankie Drake Mysteries Moses 5 episodes
2018 Evolve: Year Zero Blue Lead role, Web series: 8 episodes
Darken: Before the Dark Artemis Web series: 4 episodes
Kristal Clear Benjamin Web series: 5 episodes
Taken Domingo 1 episode
2019 Street Legal Roman Mussi 2 episodes
Ransom Tyler LeFebure 2 episodes
Departure Orderly 3 episodes
Hudson & Rex Valentine Anson 2 episodes
V-Wars Jack Fields 2 episodes
2020 Star Trek: Discovery V’Kir 1 episode
2021 Death She Wrote Rand Tolson Television film
True Story Man 2 episode
2022 The Kings of Napa Everett James 1 episode
NCIS: Hawaiʻi Pirate 2 1 episode
Chateau Laurier Gabriel Sabot Web series: 5 episodes
2023 Outer Banks Raj 3 episodes

References

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  1. ^ a b Casemore, Jamie. "Playback's 10 to Watch 2024: Emmanuel Kabongo". Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Alumni Spotlight: Emmanuel Kabongo". Canadian Film Centre. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  3. ^ "Meet actor Emmanuel Kabongo, the unstoppable force of energy the Canadian film and TV scene needs". The Globe and Mail. 2022-04-06. Retrieved 2024-04-11.
  4. ^ a b "'Sway' among Toronto Black Film Festival movies telling untold Canadian stories - Toronto | Globalnews.ca". Global News. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  5. ^ a b Townsend, Kelly. "Canadian actor turns producer on Toronto-shot thriller". Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h "Kabongo: Fired up by Nollywood spirit". The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News. 2020-01-26. Retrieved 2021-06-05.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Setting the Tone with Actor and Entrepreneur Emmanuel Kabongo | Harry Rosen". www.harryrosen.com. Retrieved 2021-06-05.
  8. ^ a b c Schneller, Johanna (2022-04-06). "Meet actor Emmanuel Kabongo, the unstoppable force of energy the Canadian film and TV scene needs". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2022-07-23.
  9. ^ a b c d "The many faces of Emmanuel Kabongo". Archived from the original on 2015-11-22. Retrieved 2015-11-22.
  10. ^ Barnard, Linda (2014-06-05). "Toronto filmmaker Ingrid Veninger ups her game with The Animal Project, a heartfelt look at relationships". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2015-11-22.
  11. ^ "Destination Femme Sits Down With Emmanuel Kabongo". Destination Femme. Retrieved 2015-11-22.
  12. ^ "Emmanuel Kabongo". cfccreates.com. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  13. ^ "Academy to recognize TV with Golden Screen Awards". PlayBack, February 4, 2015.
  14. ^ a b Chunovic, Louis (January 15, 2014). "New web series Teenagers attracts Degrassi alum". Playback. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  15. ^ "'teenagers' Enters its Final Season All Grown Up: an interview with creator M. H. Murray". Stareable Filmmaker Community. 2017-11-29. Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  16. ^ "Sex, drugs & violence: Toronto's provocative Web Series "Teenagers" returns for Season Two". Shedoesthecity. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-22.
  17. ^ "Sex, drugs & violence: Toronto's provocative Web Series "Teenagers" returns for Season Two". www.shedoesthecity. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
  18. ^ "Teenagers - The Canadian Skins - The Daily Spectacle". www.dailyspectacle.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  19. ^ "black elephant productions". YouTube. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
  20. ^ "2016 Canadian Screen Awards Nominations: 49 Projects from 63 CFC Alumni". cfccreates.com. Archived from the original on 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  21. ^ Garcia, Norma. "A Man's Story - bravoFACT – Drama Short Films | Watch Drama, Documentary Movies Online". Archived from the original on 2016-10-27. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  22. ^ "Reelworld Film Festival". Reelworld Film Festival. Archived from the original on 2016-10-27. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  23. ^ Barnes, Brooks (2016-01-26). "'Antibirth,' Natasha Lyonne and Chloë Sevigny's Sundance Reunion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-02-19.
  24. ^ Reid, Regan (September 26, 2016). "CBC commissions one-hour soccer drama". Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  25. ^ Reid, Regan (May 24, 2017). "Upfronts '17: CBC gets dramatic". Playback. Brunico Communications. Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  26. ^ "John Doyle: 21 Thunder is a fine drama containing soccer, sex and action". The Globe and Mail. 2017-07-27. Retrieved 2017-08-30.
  27. ^ "CBC's Frankie Drake Mysteries solves crimes in a post-Murdoch Mysteries Toronto".
  28. ^ "Brown Girl Begins rethinks Black History" Archived 2019-02-12 at the Wayback Machine. BeatRoute, February 10, 2018.
  29. ^ Snowden, Scott (November 27, 2020). "'Star Trek Discovery' season 3, episode 7 recap: The series' strong start feels like a different show entirely". Space.com. Retrieved 2020-12-15.
  30. ^ Ben Leeson, "Québexit, an ensemble comedy at intersection of language and culture, to premiere at Cinefest". Sudbury Star, September 21, 2020.
  31. ^ a b Furdyk, Brent (2022-02-15). "2022 Canadian Screen Award Nominees Announced, 'Sort Of' & 'Scarborough' Lead The Pack". ET Canada. Archived from the original on February 15, 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  32. ^ a b "Emmanuel Kabongo". Academy.ca. 2023-02-22. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
  33. ^ Papadatos, Markos (2023-06-05). "Emmanuel Kabongo talks about starring in the series 'Chateau Laurier'". Digital Journal. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  34. ^ Joseph, Daphney (2023-05-30). "Emmanuel Kabongo - An actor with faith and determination". SHIFTER Magazine. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  35. ^ Grobar, Matt (2022-03-10). "Demetrius Grosse Boards Sony's George Foreman Biopic; Emmanuel Kabongo & Kevin Porter Join Christina Cooper's 'Rising 6'". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-23.
  36. ^ a b Furdyk, Brent (2023-03-22). "Simulant: Exclusive Look At New Canadian Sci-Fi Film Starring Simu Liu, Robbie Amell, Jordana Brewster & Sam Worthington". ET Canada. Archived from the original on March 22, 2023. Retrieved 2023-04-06.
  37. ^ "Simulant movie review & film summary (2023) | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  38. ^ "Mr. Will Wong, Toronto Entertainment Blogger". Mr. Will Wong, Toronto Entertainment Blogger. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  39. ^ Campbell, Janiece (June 12, 2023). "Actor and producer Emmanuel Kabongo on being an immigrant in Canada, his production company and his pop culture obsessions". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  40. ^ Kroll, Dan J. (2024-01-25). "Mishael Morgan's new film, a thriller titled Sway, to premiere in February". www.soapcentral.com. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  41. ^ "Feature Filmmaking Case Study: Sway » Whistler Film Festival". www.whistlerfilmfestival.com. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  42. ^ Papadatos, Markos (2024-02-07). "Catching up with Emmanuel Kabongo: Canadian actor and producer". Digital Journal. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  43. ^ Reporter, Janiece Campbell Staff (2023-06-12). "Actor and producer Emmanuel Kabongo on being an immigrant in Canada, his production company and his pop culture obsessions". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  44. ^ Press, Alex Nino Gheciu The Canadian (2024-02-13). "'Sway' among Toronto Black Film Festival movies telling untold Canadian stories". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  45. ^ a b "How his mother's love for '90s action films inspired Emmanuel Kabongo's own acting career". CBC Arts. August 28, 2017.
  46. ^ "Hartvibez Media (Radio): Society Today's Show: Is there systemic racism in Canada? on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2021-06-05.
  47. ^ "To God be the glory. Not only am I granted another birthday as a visitor on this planet, not only am I grateful for the good health my loved ones have received, this Christmas Day has also gifted me with the perfect YES from @raquelchuk #christmasbaby #healthy #engaged". Twitter. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  48. ^ "Emmanuel Kabongo @emmkab". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2023-12-19. During what is known as the "first touch", prior to seeing each other for the first time, just moments before becoming husband and wife, we started our wedding day by holding hands and simply praying together, thanking God. From our inception, prayer was the foundation our relationship was built on and will continue to be the major key for our union. We're blessed to have each other and highly favoured to have been touched by the Holy Spirit on our WEDDING DAY! 🕊 🙏🏼🙏🏾🙌🏼🙌🏾🤲🏼🤲🏾👰🏼🤵🏾‍♂️💍💒
  49. ^ Joseph, Daphney (2023-05-30). "Emmanuel Kabongo - An actor with faith and determination". SHIFTER Magazine. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  50. ^ "LA Web Fest 2014 - Winning shows". 16 April 2014.
  51. ^ "7 reasons you should care about the Canadian Screen Awards this year". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  52. ^ "Home". International Academy of Web Television. Archived from the original on 2010-01-30. Retrieved 2017-10-07.
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