Salvatore Adamo, when I sing

Seventy-five years ago, Belgium and Italy signed a coal-for-manpower agreement that would reshape both nations' histories. Among the Sicilian families who crossed into Belgium was a three-year-old boy whose father worked the mines and whose voice would eventually reach millions of listeners across the world.

That boy was Salvatore Adamo. This documentary follows him as he revisits the arc of a career spanning six decades, from his early years as an immigrant child to the remarkable moment in the 1960s when he simultaneously held three titles in the top five charts. Directed by Hadja Lahbib and Jean-Marc Panis, the film is structured around Adamo's own retelling, anchored by a reflective conversation that begins after a concert at the Royal Theatre of Mons.

His wife, long a private presence in his life, contributes here alongside close friends, collaborators, and artists who offer their own interpretations of his songs. Together, they draw a portrait that is as much about identity and migration as it is about music.

Adamo watches his own story with a kind of quiet wonder, as though encountering it from a distance. The life, he suggests, chose him. This film simply allows us to watch it pass.