Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
It was just happenstance that Kasper Bisgaard came across a photograph of the Green Bank Telescope in a photography book. It was 2018, and he was in a bookstore in his home country of Denmark.
“I like to look at photography books and all of a sudden there was this gigantic radio telescope and people walking underneath it,” he said. “I thought, ‘wow, this looks interesting.’”
As a documentary filmmaker, Bisgaard is naturally inquisitive and he began to research the telescope, the town and the Quiet Zone.
“I pitched it to my friend – an old colleague – Mikael Lypinski, and he immediately said, ‘we are going to make a film about this place; about the Quiet Zone.’”
The filmmakers were both intrigued by the lifestyle of those who live in the Quiet Zone and have limited access to WiFi and no cellphone towers.
“We were intrigued by the basic framework – a colossal radio telescope surrounded by mountains and dense forest; a complex, almost mysterious ‘quiet zone;’ a community living without cellphones – it all seemed to be a very fascinating mix between cutting-edge, high-tech technology and a down-to-Earth, disconnected lifestyle,” Lypinski said.
Bisgaard, of Denmark, and Lypinski, of Sweden, are both from areas that are always connected and so they wanted to learn more about life without that constant technological connection.
The two have known each other for more than 30 years and attended film school in Poland together. They have wanted to work together for a long time and “The End of Quiet” was the project that finally saw them collaborating.
They were joined by a film crew and came to Green Bank in May 2019. They stayed for a month. The film was initially going to be a short piece, but once they got here and met some of the locals, it soon dawned on them that this story was meant to be feature length.
That first month wasn’t enough, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film crew was unable to return to Green Bank until three years later in 2022, which actually made the story even better in Bisgaard’s mind.
“We had a feeling that we wanted to come back to Green Bank and do a bit of reshoots, just a couple of scenes,” he said. “We were anxious to get back. We thought we were almost done, but when we came back and we realized that during the three years we had not been in Green Bank, the lives of some of our participants had changed.
“All of a sudden, we could see that our film expanded and became a bigger film that we thought,” he added.
Although they only spent a total of two months in Green Bank, in the span of three years, Bisgaard said they were able to make great connections with locals and enjoyed getting to know everyone they met.
“We got to know people really fast, and people were open and friendly,” he said. “The adjustment was fast in terms of filmmaking. It was fantastic. It was really a wonderful experience to film in Pocahontas [County], Green Bank and West Virginia.
“Obviously, the nature, the quiet, the clean air, the people, the lifestyle, everything,” he continued. “It was really, really a pleasant experience. In that way, we soon forgot about our phones. We adjusted fine. To us, it became almost like a detox.”
For Lypinski, it was like traveling back in time when they came to Green Bank.
“When we were teenagers in the late 80s and early 90s, we had no cellphones, no internet, no Facebook, no online hotel bookings available to us,” he said. “In many ways, traveling to the Quiet Zone in West Virginia was like traveling back in time, to an era before we had constant access to the world on a device in our pocket. We really enjoyed this time travel.”
The intent of “The End of Quiet” is to show the world this little part of the globe that seems disconnected due to its restrictions on cellphone towers, but for Bisgaard, it also became a look at how more access to cellphones can be a disconnect, as well.
“It’s really a mirror from my world where everybody is connected and we feel like we’re so connected to each other, but to some extent it almost feels like we are getting more and more disconnected,” he said. “The aim is to show this wonderful place of Green Bank and how it is to live [in the Quiet Zone]. Hopefully they can give insight into what the rest of the world is missing.”
The film made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in Buffalo, New York, June 7, and was well received by critics and crowds.
Attending the premiere alongside Bisgaard and Lypinski were several of the individuals featured in the documentary including astronomer and scientist Jay Lockman, Dave Warner and Kirstin Wolfe and her son, Leo.
Bisgaard said the film will be shown at other film festivals around the world before it is distributed either online or on broadcast. There is already a European release date, but they are still working on the American distribution.
The connections made in Green Bank will remain with Bisgaard and Lypinski, who both say they hope to return to visit. In fact, they have been invited to a wedding coming up this September, which shocked them.
They never expected to make that strong of a connection with those who were featured in the documentary.
“I think that says a lot about the people in Green Bank, West Virginia,” Bisgaard said. “It has really been a pleasure to be in contact. I’d love to come back, and I know Mikael would, too.
“It’s such a beautiful, beautiful place.”
