Mélanie Diam's gave up her career as a star rapper to embrace Islam.
She takes the floor for the first to talk about her choice in a documentary, "Salam", co-directed with Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé.
Diam's – or Mélanie Georgiades for civil status – is engaged in
Salam
which is released in theaters on July 1 and 2, but also on the BrutX streaming platform
.
This documentary, presented out of competition at Cannes, she co-directed with Houda Benyamina (
Divines
) and Anne Cissé.
We learn why she converted to Islam while renouncing show business at the height of her career.
"By dint of running in all directions, my life had none left", she says from the start of a film which offers testimonies from her relatives such as her mother, the singer Vitaa, the novelist Faïza Guène or footballer Nicolas Anelka, whose faces are framed as if they were wearing a hijab.
This is what this film reveals in particular, where Diam's speaks for the first time in ten years, to explain his conversion.
We learn the origin of his revelation
It was on a beach, while she was traveling with Vitaa, that Diam's found answers to the existential questions that haunted her.
Shortly after
, Paris Match
published a stolen photo of her, veiled, which made her conversion known to the general public.
What his fans had always taken very well.
She decided to devote herself to the weakest
If the ex-rap star gave up her career, she did not remain inactive.
She devotes herself to the orphanages that she subsidizes and does not hesitate to pay personally to help carers and children.
She tells in the documentary how much this work, her family life and prayer fully satisfy her today.
She says she's softened
A long sequence where she speaks with her father by telephone shows that her relationship with him (very conflicted when she was a star) has softened.
Mélanie Diam's says she feels better about herself and that it is also felt in her relationships with others.
Religion would have brought him what was missing in his life before.
Now she travels a lot
The film with very polished images takes Mélanie Diam's (and the viewer) to Mali, Tanzania and Mauritius for long shots where the forties commune with nature.
She says she has drawn a line under her depressive past and her suicide attempts thanks to her conversion.
She thinks she has no regrets
Even if the film is an autobiography and she can tell what she wants, we feel in
Salam
a more fulfilled woman than at the time of her glory.
His relatives also testify to the good that this change has brought him.
This is the meaning of the title
Salam
(“Peace” in Arabic): Diam's has, it seems, found its way.
And in Cannes, she wished us in a video to find ours.
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