Resynator

Resynator

Tuesday, December 10, 2024 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm
  • Library Hall
WINNER! Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at 2024 SXSW

The girl. The synth. The legend. In unearthing the revolutionary synthesizer her late father invented in the 1970s, Alison Tavel not only revives his mission to share it with the world, she unexpectedly forges a deep bond with the father she never got the chance to know.

Inventor Don Tavel died suddenly when his newborn daughter was just ten weeks old. Growing up surrounded by mythical stories of her “genius” father, Alison’s life is consequently absent from any meaningful connection to him. Not until she is in her mid-twenties and on tour with rock musician Grace Potter is the seed planted to discover what he invented. Resynator is a narrative documentary that begins when Alison rescues Don’s synthesizer prototype from her grandmother’s attic. What starts off as a curious resurrection project of her dad’s Resynator soon launches into an insatiable, globe-trotting quest to untangle the web of myths and unlock the deep secrets surrounding his life and invention.

Aided by estranged family, lost friends, fellow inventors and celebrated musicians (Grace Potter, Peter Gabriel, Mark Ronson, Fred Armisen, Gotye, Jimmy Jam, Money Mark, Mike Gordon, Jon Anderson and more), Alison soon comes to discover Don’s brilliance herself. But in unpacking his life, she also discovers unsettling truths about her father that don't align with her long-held perception of him, as the picture of a vulnerable man emerges to replace the superhero version she had imagined all her life. Not only can she finally relate to him on a human level, but their parallel Resynator journeys reveal an indomitable bond between them.