“A Dog Really Brings Out the Humanity in a Person”: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady on ’FOLKTALES’

Located only 200-odd miles from the Arctic Circle, Pasvik Folk High School in Norway offers teenagers on the precipice of adulthood an opportunity to get some distance from the fast-paced demands of modern society and immerse themselves in snowy survivalism. Longtime collaborators and co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, Detropia) follow three students—the ever-determined Helge, socially awkward Bjorn Torne and keenly sensitive Romain—throughout the school year, depicting their unique bonds with sled dogs, intense solo treks amidst the tundra and, most importantly, a marked improvement in their self-esteem. While rooted in the filmmakers’ interest in unconventional educational institutions (their 2005 feature, The Boys of Baraka, follows 20 Baltimore youths to a boarding school in Kenya, while Jesus Camp centers on an Evangelical summer camp), FOLKTALES also marks one of their most ambitious projects yet, which necessitated a dozen two-day trips from New York to the remote Norwegian wilderness over a nine month shooting period. 

Ewing and Grady spoke with me over Zoom the week before FOLKTALES premieres in Park City. Below, they shed insight on the origins of this project, the magic of finding one’s “dog twin” and embarking on a five-day shoot to secure the film’s poetic final shot. This interview has been edited.

DOCUMENTARY: How did you come across Pasvik High School and embark on shooting a documentary there? 

HEIDI EWING: During COVID, I was listening to a podcast about an American dog sledder. I wrote her name down, looked her up, and then I read her book. In the second chapter, she talks about going to a folk high school. She goes to this place, learns dog sledding, and it changes her life and her whole worldview. I’d never heard of a folk high school and thought that maybe it was something that didn’t exist anymore. I started looking it up and found out that there are about 400 of them between Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In fact, they were extremely popular during COVID, because despite lockdowns the folk high schools remained open. 

It’s definitely a vibrant and real part of Scandinavian culture. It has its ebbs and flows in terms of popularity. Certain folk high schools focus on circus arts or graphic design or Viking life. We focused only on the ones in the north of the country that were teaching Arctic survival, using dogs, or challenging people’s physical as well as mental selves. We began researching and Zooming with folk high schools. A lot of them thought they were being lied to about an American filmmaking team actually caring to know about a folk high school; several times they didn’t respond because they literally thought it was a joke. 

In 2023 we visited five schools. As soon as we met the teachers and dogs that are featured in the movie, we knew this was the story we wanted to tell. We weren’t able to cast the film until much later—we had to find the financing with no characters because students sometimes don’t sign up until the last moment—but we knew there was something very special with the teachers. Of course, we eventually found our three amazing protagonists and things started to gel.

D: The film unfolds over the course of a year, and I’m curious about the shooting schedule you adhered to. 

RACHEL GRADY: We did what Heidi and I usually do as a team: we develop a film together, go into the field together in the beginning, then go back in separately. In this case, it was absolutely the most efficient way we could do it because the school is so far away. It takes two days to get there. We started shooting in the beginning of the school year and basically one of us went back every four to six weeks. All of our crew was Norwegian, but no one lived up there—they all lived in Oslo. They went on their own with no director a couple of times just for quick days, but when we counted it up, we ended up going 12 times in nine months between the two of us. 

D: What drew you to Helge, Bjorn Torne, and Romain as your principal subjects? We see glimpses of other students, some who come from much farther, but these young adults clearly made quite the impression on you. 

HE: You look for people who want to change. We filmed about six or seven students the summer before at their homes, then we ended up zeroing in on Bjorn Torne, Helge, and Romain. We found them different enough from one another. Two of the students are Norwegian, one is Dutch. None of them were looking to be famous, no one loved the camera. They were willing to share and be part of this process. In the end, we feel like there is a pretty profound arc for all three of them. 

D: Of course, I also have to mention the dogs. Sautso, Dia, and Billy have wonderful chemistry with their owners. Was this also a factor in selecting the students you wanted to follow closely? 

RG: All of the kids were naturally attracted to certain dogs. I think that was actually sort of the secret sauce of the school for everybody. A dog really brings out the humanity in a person, ironically. People have special relationships with certain animals, and it seems crazy, but they almost seem to have similar personalities. Billy and BT are a lot alike: they’re loud, excitable, curious, and maybe a little bit too much sometimes. Dia was extremely shy and needed to be drawn out, just like Romain. I guess there’s a world in which people are attracted to their dog twin. 

HE: For Helge, the closest relationship in her life is her grandfather, and she chose the oldest dog in the yard that she said had grandpa energy. 

D: What was the most surprising thing that you both learned by working with these teenagers and within this environment?

HE: I don’t have kids. I don’t know that many teenagers, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the generation. I know that’s super broad, but I was really surprised by the tenderness and optimism that 18, 19, and 20-year-olds all showed. They wanted to sit and talk about what it’s like to be an adult in the working world. I spent a lot of time with the students with no camera. I was taken off guard in a good way. They really were open to the world. Maybe it’s the type of student that goes to a folk high school, maybe it’s the age, but I didn’t realize that I’d be forging these bonds. 

RG: I did not expect this place to have such an effect on me. I live in New York City, I’ve lived in cities my whole life. This particular place being on the edge of the world really affects your nervous system. It was a full reset when I would go there. It felt spiritual, it’s an ancient place. 

That was actually part of the inspiration for the whole mythological layer of the film. It makes sense in your bones when you’re there. I don’t like the cold and I’m a big baby; I was so worried about being uncomfortable that it didn’t even occur to me that this place could be so magical and be so profound to my spirit. 

D: I’m glad you touched on the mythological device you use in the film. I’m curious about the tree completely bandaged by red string. Where did this image come from and what was the process of committing it to screen? 

HE: That was really fun for us. We ran across the tree in November on the solo night trip. It’s like Guillermo del Toro built this tree for us. I was like, “We have to come back and film this.” Norse mythology is so present in daily life there. We had read about the Norns that live at the base of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and how they weave the futures of humans and the gods. Is there agency for the human, for the god? This question was begging to integrate itself. Plus the students had to knit sweaters and Iselin, one of the teachers, is always knitting. 

Throughout the movie, you see one string, two strings, six strings; you see a life taken and the string being cut. You see someone learning a lesson and there’s another string added to the tree. 

So we went back to the tree. We were hoping she was still standing; it’s hard to get to because you have to walk several kilometers from the road. We had to get all these permits and then we had to find a crew to bring in all the scaffolding so we didn’t hurt the tree. There was a crew that spent five days wrapping that tree in August. It was actually the greatest five days of the shoot, at least for me. It was almost over, it was summer, and it was like a farewell to this experience. Everyone was very attached to the tree and it became a sacred farewell to the project. 

D: How did the edit shape the story? 

RG: I’ll tell you what, when making an observational film in a different language, your edit is full of surprises. Like the beet conversation, which is one of my favorite vérité scenes of all time. It’s just perfect in so many ways. 

HE: There were also a few political rallies that the students were involved in. We wanted to show that the students are politically engaged, but the film kept rejecting not being timeless. The film wants to be evergreen about coming of age and growing up. It didn’t want to be tied to 2023 or 2024. At some point you have to listen to your movie and let her decide what it is. 

Natalia Keogan is a critic and journalist based in NYC. Her bylines include Filmmaker Magazine, A.V. Club, Reverse Shot, and Paste, amongst others.