Bell Media has acquired Canadian rights to the documentary Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League ahead of its world premiere on Monday (Sept. 8) at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The doc has been picked up in Canada for Bell Media’s Crave and TSN platforms. ESPN has also picked up exclusive U.S. rights to the film.

Origin details the creation, launch and first season of the Basketball Africa League, the NBA’s first league outside of North America. Spearheaded by Senegalese-American basketball executive Amadou Gallo Fall and former Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri in partnership with FIBA, the pan-African league features 12 top club teams from across Africa’s 54 countries competing in a caravan format.

In addition to Fall and Ujiri, the film features interviews with Barack Obama, rapper and former Rwanda Patriots player J. Cole, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and NBA stars Stephen Curry, Joakim Noah, Dikembe Mutombo and Pascal Siakam.

Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League is produced by Passenger and Fremantle, which also handles global sales. The film is executive-produced and written by Richard Brown, who also co-directs alongside Tebogo Malope. Other executive producers include Ujiri, Malope, Akin Omotoso and Fisher Stevens.

A version of this story originally appeared in Realscreen

Image courtesy of Fremantle