‘Row of Life’ honors Paralympian Angela Madsen’s life of courage, love and record-breaking resolve at 5Point Film Festival

About a month after her graduation from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2019, budding director Soraya Simi received a Facebook message that would alter the course of her career — and profoundly change her life. 

It was from Paralympian rower and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Angela Madsen, who asked Simi to “make a little video” about her upcoming expedition: a 2,400 mile solo ocean row across the Pacific.

“You’re not at a stage in your career yet where people are really reaching out to you,” Simi said. “It was an immediate surprise, and then confusion, because I had no idea what she meant by ‘rowing an ocean alone.'”

A quick google turned her confusion into awe. Even paralyzed from the waist down — the result of a botched spine surgery following a basketball injury — Madsen had accomplished more in her nearly-sixty years than many people do in their lifetime.

A rower, F56 track, and field athlete and three-time Paralympian, she held 14 Guinness World Records — including oldest woman to row the Indian Ocean, farthest female shot put, and most ocean rows by a woman, with a total of four.

It was a sailing documentary of Simi’s that caught the record-setting athlete’s attention.

“I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I had real experience living at sea, and I knew what that entailed,” she said. “I was also a young woman who was hungry to prove myself in this world, and she … saw a lot of potential there, of someone who would want to finish what they started.”

Like Madsen, she was infatuated with the ocean. After growing up landlocked in Tucson, Arizona, attending school in California gave the young filmmaker the opportunity to connect with her muse. In 2017, Simi spent 40 days aboard a sailboat through a Sea Education Association program affiliated with Boston University.

“The actual living at sea part was incredibly physically, emotionally, and mentally intense,” she said. “Lots of sleep deprivation, a lot of negatives. It was not a vacation but just so positive in the sense that it was an incredible challenge to do at that stage of my life.

“I learned a lot about myself and it was incredibly beautiful and exhilarating,” she added. “All the things that you would think it would be, it was.”

The filming process began slowly. 

“I was very reticent to jump all in with her because I thought her vision was a little too ambitious for what I was capable of executing — she really wanted a full-fledged feature film,” Simi said. “I tried to explain to her that that costs a lot of money, and it’s a very big uphill battle.”

They eventually settled on a 20-minute short film. Even then, she had to call in every favor, rallying film school friends and bootstrapping the production. She assembled a crew, raised enough money to pay them, and got to work.

Leading up to launch, she spent months filming Madsen and her partner, Deb, at their Long Beach home. She shot only when the moment felt right, building comfort and trust before capturing the details of Madsen’s meticulous preparation — everything from her training regimen to her meal-prepping. 

Simi’s team rigged Madsen’s 20-foot rowboat, “Row of Life,” with the gear she needed to document the solo journey. With no follow boat, Madsen would be completely alone until she docked in Hawaii. 

“It was really an effort to make sure Angela was competent enough to use the cameras and understand how to offload footage and do all those tasks as well, which she was exceptionally competent at,” Simi said. “I think she was also a natural born filmmaker. She had a really strong sense about what to capture when, how to tell a story, that kind of thing. So she was an incredible collaborator for so much of it as well.” 

In April 2020, Madsen launched from California’s Marina del Rey. With enough supplies for 100 days on the ocean, she set her sights on the western horizon. It was the last row she planned to complete before retiring and would make her the oldest woman, first openly queer athlete, and only paraplegic to make the 2,400-mile trek solo. 

She turned 60 on the ocean that May — and died more than halfway through her journey the following month. 

After Madsen passed, her boat was struck by a category four hurricane, and its tracking went offline. The boat — and the footage of her journey — was lost. 

To Simi, Madsen was more than a documentary subject: she was her collaborator, mentor, and friend. 

“Angela and I, we had a really lovely friendship because she was just a blast of a person to be around — a really funny, super warm, and outgoing personality. She was very easy to get along with,” Simi said. “She and I both loved the water so much, which was probably the most fun part of our time working together because she knew I was always game to do anything that would take us out outside and play in the ocean. That was part of the reason why she selected me to do this anyway because it’s a really hard job to do if you don’t love being in uncomfortable situations at sea.

“We played a lot and had a lot of time to just hang out and be friends, and she in many ways felt like a mentor to me because she was such an incredible role model,” she added. “I was 23 at the time, and she was able to give a lot of really incredible life advice and put things into perspective for me. So just a really important figure in my life at a young age.” 

It took over a year for Shermi to decide whether to continue the documentary. With the loss of Madsen’s at-sea footage, it felt impossible to move forward. 

So she decided to honor Madsen in a different way. 

“I took a breather and was at peace with ‘Okay, if this isn’t a documentary, then I’ll fulfill my promise to Angela to tell the story in some other way,'” Simi said. “I’ll write a book, I’ll do something that honors her, but it can’t be a documentary because I don’t know how this can be made anymore.”

Then, In November 2021, the U.S. Embassy contacted her with unexpected news — Madsen’s boat had washed ashore on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands, not far from where some believe Amelia Earhart crashed. 

None of the footage survived, and the cameras had been stolen. But to Simi, the miraculous recovery felt like a sign. 

“It was so weird and a majorly, profoundly, full-circle historical moment … it was one of those mysteries that felt like it would take forever to solve,” she said. “It felt really apparent that there was something else guiding the process and a sign, as much as any, that you should finish what you start.

“That’s when I started working on it again in earnest,” she added.

With renewed energy, she and a devoted film team — including producers Nicholas Weissman and Jaime Chew — stitched together archived footage based on satellite phone messages and photos Madsen sent while on the ocean. 

The resulting feature documentary, “Row of Life,” was released in February.

The film is about much more than Madsen’s last expedition. After all, her recreated ocean journey only makes up six minutes of the 82-minute feature. 

It’s a story of unyielding love, resilience, determination, and courage — one that redefines what many believe to be  humanly possible. 

For Simi, the film remains one of her most satisfying accomplishments.

“I think it’s an incredibly inspiring story. I hope people feel that,” she said. “It took Angela and Deb a long time to find themselves romantically in their lives … so I think it’s also a story about embracing your authenticity as soon as possible. That’s what frees you in life: not hiding anything about yourself.”

Catch “Row of Life” at the 2025 5Point Film Festival on Saturday, April 26, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 (with an additional $6.95 fee) and can be purchased at 5pointfilm.org