Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady‘s camera has locked eyes with youth culture before, from the 20 “Boys of Baraka” who left Baltimore for Kenya during middle school to the young Christians of “Jesus Camp.” For their latest film “Folktales,” the documentary filmmaking team embedded themselves in the arctic wilderness on and off for over a year at the Pasvik Folk High School, where Gen Z leave their phones behind and submit to a confidence-building journey that teaches survival skills — with a few sled dogs as guides to the natural world.
Located in Norway, the school provides a kind of “gap year” for students before college — in other words, the space between youth and adulthood that is often filled with uncertainty anyway. Following three teens who lived in the remote location from August to May, this lovely, absorbing, and patiently shot documentary premieres at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, January 25.
The three teens Ewing and Grady focus on — Hege, Romain, and Bjørn Tore — are so charismatic and often with so much angst of their own that “Folktales” almost acquires a reality documentary series quality. “We filmed six or seven people before school started, hedging our bets, just meeting people and going to their homes,” Ewing told IndieWire. “These three individuals all had something they were seeking, a specific reason they were going to the folk high school. They had road to travel. They were looking to change. We thought [these three] had the highest chance they might be different at the end than they were at the beginning.”
There are about more than 400 folk high schools between Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. “It’s a very robust tradition,” said Ewing, intrigued by the potential for a film after listening to a podcast with a dog musher. “It’s an August tradition in Scandinavia. It’s a rite of passage. Not all of them focus on the natural world or survivalist. You can study circus arts or Viking life. We were interested in the ones that focused on survival and bushcraft and dog-sledding. We visited five schools [in Norway] and talked to at least 12. The last one we visited was Pasvik. It’s so hard to get to. It’s so inconvenient. It’s so cold. We were like, ‘I hope this isn’t the one.’ And of course, we met the dog-sledding teachers, and the place had this stark, brutal magic, and it was obvious that there was a movie to be made there.”
Grady added, “The school year is from August to May. Heidi and I took turns going to the school. About once a month, there was a shoot happening… It was actually the quickest film we’ve ever made, ironically because it was so hard to make. We were the only Americans on the production. It was an all-Norwegian crew… Norwegians have a different relationship with the natural world to begin with as a baseline than Americans or, at the very least, New Yorkers. There was a gentleness that was wonderful to work with.”
Ewing said that “culturally, there is a patience. It’s a stereotype, but most people would agree, they’re not in a hurry, and this movie needed patience and observation.” One of their new collaborators was cinematographer Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo (“Songs of Earth”), shooting vérité for the first time.
As for the students they chose to follow, Ewing said, none other than Hege were “that into social media,” making the task of unplugging for the kids that much easier. “Nobody was trying to be an influencer. No one wanted to be famous. There was no incentive for them to participate in the film at all except, ‘This is interesting. I’m curious. They seem cool. OK.’ There’s nothing we could offer them. They just weren’t seeking attention.”
“These were individuals willing to be honest and revealing about themselves,” Grady said. Next up, Hege and two of Pasvik’s teachers will join the filmmakers at the Sundance premiere. The film is currently looking for distribution, though Grady and Ewing’s seasoned background as Oscar-nominated doc makers will no doubt attract buyers’ attention. At a Sundance where many documentaries tackle crises and sociopolitical issues head-on — and this is not to say “Folktales” isn’t political — this one’s an enveloping and gently moving experience well-matched to the wintry conditions in Park City.
“There’s also a lot of pressure to see if a story’s going to evolve or not,” Ewing said of the film’s production. “There’s no guarantee that anyone’s going to change or anything meaningful is going to happen. And so again, it is great to have sort of parameters, but it’s also extremely nerve-wracking as filmmakers because once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
