Former Alamance residents film featured at RiverRun Film Festival - Burlington Times News

WINSTON-SALEM — Former Alamance County resident Ben Nabors will return "home" to North Carolina on Saturday for the RiverRun International Film Festival.

Nabors, who co-wrote "The Sound of Silence" with director Michael Tyburski, "is happy to come back to the area. It's nice to bring my work back home."

"This is a prestigious film festival and we're honored to be a part of it. And my mom gets to see the film in the theater," Nabors said in a phone interview on Friday afternoon from his home in New York, where he lives with his wife and young daughter. His mother, Jean Anderson, lives in Burlington.

The film will be screened at 8 p.m. Saturday in the University of North Carolina School of the Arts' Main Theatre, 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem.

The characters for "The Sound of Silence" were created in 2009 and "it was written in earnest since 2013," Nabors said.

In "The Sound of Silence," Peter Sarsgaard plays a "house tuner."

"He takes overlooked noises — the hum of a refrigerator or air conditioner — that he believes causes the home's residents to live under a minor chord. And he tunes the appliances so that they're living under a major chord," Nabors said. "He believes he's identified larger patterns that can be linked to depression, anxiety and stress. These notes occur consistently in certain neighborhoods."

In addition to Sarsgaard, the cast includes Rashida Jones, Tony Revolori, Austin Pendleton, Bruce Altman, Tracee Chimo, Alex Karpovsky, Kate Lyn Sheil and Tina Benko.

Although a house tuner is a fictional occupation, Nabors and Tyburski conducted research on how people feel emotional responses from particular notes.

"The Catholic Church used to believe there was a Devil's Tritone and would discourage composers from using the ominous sound. Lots of composers have utilized certain keys to establish certain moods," Nabors added.

The Hollywood Reporter said the film "deftly balances the cerebral with the soulful in a story of transfixing originality."

Tyburski and Nabors' 2013 short film, "Palimpsest," won Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. Nabors' debut feature documentary, "William and the Windmill," about windmill inventor William Kamkwamba won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival in 2013. 

Nabors wrote and produced "Actor Seeks Role," which won the Grand Jury Prize at IFFBoston and had its online premiere with The New Yorker. IN 2016, his second feature documentary, "The Happy Film" (about graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and in 2017, it opened theatrically in Europe to a top 10 ranking in the box office.

Nabors is founder of the production studio, group theory, and is currently working on a new project.

Of "The Sound of Silence," Nabors said "it's a film that represents my relationship with New York City. I believe it captures the new-to-the-city amazement that I felt when I first came here."

"The sound experience is really special," he added. "The sound design is as immersive as possible for the audience."

Tickets are $9.24 and can be purchased at riverrunfilm.com/.

To find out more about Ben Nabors, visit www.grouptheory.com.

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