ON Tuesday, the Jamaica Film Festival truly got off to a strong start with the screening of the event’s curtain-raiser, Finding Samuel Lowe.

The docu-film follows the search by Harlem-born Paula Williams Madison, and her brothers Elrick and Howard, to connect with the Chinese father of their Jamaican mother.

The personal, yet riveting story, had the audience in the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, engrossed from start to finish.

Finding Samuel Lowe is an intense search for self, identity, belonging and family, which Madison undertakes six years after her mother dies.

It takes viewers on her journey accross North America to Jamaica where they (Madison and her brothers) learned more about their grandfather who returned to China in 1933. The journey continued to China, where it comes to a tear-jerking climax, as they are united with their Chinese family.

Speaking to Splash following the screening, Madison described the process of making the film as cathartic.

“It was all about healing…healing for absent parents. As I said in the film, I truly believe my mother was sad; sad because there was this part of her that was missing. She is now smiling as I have completed the circle and have made that connection with her father, Samuel Lowe.”

Madison, a retired media executive, is a major shareholder in The Africa Channel and is one of the main presenters at the inaugural Jamaica Film Festival, which continues today with the screening of eight films at various locations throughout the Corporate Area.

There will also be workshops on music and movies, live shows and production, and an expose on the Caribbean film industry.

The festival concludes tomorrow with three films from Trinidad and Tobago and the event’s closing ceremony.