Near the end of this documentary about teenagers attending a folk school in northernmost Norway, where they learn survival skills and how to train sledding dogs, an instructor gives a heartfelt speech to his graduating students: “Be bold. Open doors. Turn around if the weather is bad.” I thought that was pretty perfect advice, for young and old alike. If I was any good at needlepoint, I’d stitch it on a throw pillow. If I was better with commitment, I might ink it on my arm.
But there’s much these students must go through first, to get to that stirring valediction. In particular, Folktales filmmaking duo Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady home in on three teenagers at a crossroads: Hege, still grieving her father’s sudden death; Romain, struggling with a dire lack of confidence; and the good-natured but socially awkward Bjørn Tore. The filmmakers have clearly put in the work, building trust with their young subjects. (Ewing and Grady have a knack for compassionate vérités about kids away from home, as evidenced in 2005’s The Boys of Baraka and 2006’s Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp.) In addition to documenting long, fascinating process scenes of the students setting up camp in the wilderness and harnessing the dogs for a ride (noble creatures, and hella cute in puppy form), the filmmakers also sit the students down for revealing conversations; notably, the kids are faced not toward the camera, but toward an unseen speaker – presumably one of the filmmakers. In these check-ins, Hege, Romain, and Bjørn Tore speak plainly, sometimes painfully, about their struggles before they showed up for this life-changing gap year at Pasvik Folk High School. They’re also honest about the ways the change of scenery and dramatic drop in temperature is no magic cure-all for their problems.
If the title wasn’t a tell, the filmmakers rely on a folk motif, leaning in particular on a Norse myth about three goddesses who weave together the threads of fate, represented in the film with bright red yarn wound around leaf-stripped trees. At first, I thought the filmmakers were being overly arty, straining for the sublime. Eventually I got over it, and my own natural resistance to too much talk of destiny: The landscape, ancient and punishing; this rarefied air, 200 miles above the Arctic Circle; these young people, on the precipice of adulthood, learning the value of self-reliance and kindness – it all begs for the kind of soulful treatment Folktales delivers in spades. By film’s end, my cheeks were wet with feeling so many feelings for these young people just getting going. I am in awe of their boldness.
This article appears in August 1 • 2025.
