Doc 10 2025 – FOLKTALES
Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have been making potent and poignant documentaries for some time, such as 2006’s “Jesus Camp” and 2016’s “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.” Their latest is “FOLKTALES”, which follows three teenagers who make an unexpected course correction in their lives involving nature and dogs that hopefully puts them on a more confident and fulfilling path. That description alone makes me an easy sell, but I maintain that you don’t have to love nature and dogs to appreciate this wonderful story, which almost feels like experiencing a needed meditation.
Just north of the Arctic Circle in Norway, sits Finnmark, a county located on the border of Norway and Russia, and it’s there you’ll find the Pasvik Folk High School. It’s far from your ordinary high school and not just because of it’s remote location. Considered a place between high school and adulthood, where graduates will reside for a year and learn life lessons along the lines of diversity, human development, community and a love for nature. The students are responsible for a sled dog and develop a community that learns outdoor survival skills together, and in the process learn quite a bit about themselves. Ultimately, the goal is to instill confidence by stripping away the external forces (all the screens!) they’re constantly bombarded with by going back to a time of primal basics.
Ewing and Grady focus on three specific teens who will meet at Pasvik and embark on this journey together. We first meet 19-year-old Hege, who struggles with grief over the recent death of her father, who was murdered. She’s self-conscious and admits to being on overthinker, worried about how she’s perceived. Bjørn, who’s also 19, who’s more outgoing yet a self-professed nerd who admits he doesn’t have that many friends. 18-year-old Romain wrestles with self-doubt and social anxiety, which sets off a self-defense response. They will engage in hiking, indoor wall-climbing, and dog-sledding, and eventually discover that they have a lot more in common than they initially think.
While they will experience challenges, support will come in the form of the dogs they get to bond with and the instructors at the school. One dog-sledding teacher, Iselin, talks to the students about re-training their brains, stating once they are free from all the screens around them (granted, they do have use of their phones still) they will be able to awaken the “stone-age brain”. Thor Atle (of course his name is Thor), one of the Dog-sledding Instructors, tells the students that “dogs teach us to be more human, more patient” and reflects that when you “give yourself a fire, a dog, and a starry sky above you”, that’s all one needs in life. Both of them have a Norwegian straightforwardness that comes across as firm yet warm and reassuring. They believe in these teens and they communicate this to them as they encourage them to embrace independence.
Along with the “feel good” nature of “FOLKTALES”, the exquisite visuals help us to feel good about nature. It’s cold there and much of the time we see a snowy climate, but there’s a warmth depicted, thanks to the cinematography of Tor Edvin Eliassen and Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo, who show an appreciation for the landscape and expansive skies above. It’s easy to get lost in the environment and it’s also easy to see why that is one of the goals that Ewing and Grady had in mind.
Overall, there is much to be appreciated here, especially in the way the film displays common feelings such as loneliness, insecurity, grief, and doubt. It’s easy to recognize how helpful this particular approach to learning would be beneficial in any society. There seems to be more to tell here, almost as if this whole project could be turned into a series – in that way, “Folktales” feels like a primer albeit a life-affirming one.
RATING: ***
screening on Sat, 5/03 at 1pm at Davis Theater – followed by a Q&A with director Heidi Ewing
