documentaries, film festivals, Folktales, Hege Wik, Heidi Ewing, Iselin Breivold, Ketil Foss, movies, Norway, Pasvik Folk High School, Rachel Grady, reviews, Romain Le Biannic, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, Thor-Atle Svortevik
September 4, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Some language in Norwegian and Spanish with subtitles
Culture Representation: Filmed from August 2023 to May 2024, the documentary film “Folktales” features a predomninantly white group of people (with one Latin person and one Asian person) who are connected in some way to Pasvik Folk High School in Norway.
Culture Clash: Students of Pasvik Folk High School spend time in the Arctic Circle in harsh weather conditions and learn survival skills and how to participate in dog sledding in a year-long program.
Culture Audience: “Folktales” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a beautifully atomspheric “coming of age” documentary that is more contemplative than informative.
“Folktales” is a documentary that is style over substance. However, there’s enough substance for people interested in seeing how a Norwegian folk high school builds character and confidence through dog sledding. Heartfelt moments balance out slow pacing.
Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, “Folktales” was filmed from August 2023 to May 2024. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary’s title refers to how the modern-day events of the documentary are somehow relevant or linked to ancient Norwegian folktales of Norns: goddesses who weave people’s fates through yarn.
“Folktales” begins by showing foreboding scenes of a wintry Norwegian wooded area at night. A woman says in a voiceover in Norwegian: “Odin, the king of the gods, walked through an enchanted forest toward the Tree of Life. On the roots of the tree, he found the Norns, the three Fates who weave our destinies out of yarn.”
The narration continues: “‘Give me the gifts that ensure a happy life,’ said Odin. ‘No,’ said the Fates. ‘You cannot receive those gifts so easily … You must earn those gifts on your own.'” It’s somewhat of a pretentious way to begin the documentary, which doesn’t have any other reference to Norse mythology except scenes that show red yarn wrapped around forest trees, with the yarn obviously put there by the filmmakers.
Pasvik Folk High School is an “alternative” learning institution, which has a year-long program. The school is based in Finnmark, Norway, which is 200 miles above the Arctic and is near the border of Russia. The purpose of the school and other Norwegian folk schools is to “offer a way for teens to seek a year of independence before embarking on adulthood,” according to a caption in the documentary. “Folktales” focuses on three students of Pasvik Folk High School:
- Hege Wik, who was 19 when this documentary was filmed, is from Sandnes, Norway. She says to be a young woman is “chaos.” She describes herself as someone who’s gotten tired about being overly concerned about what other people think about her. Wik also says her father was killed, but she doesn’t like to talk about it. And that’s when you that there will be a part of the documentary where she will talk about it.
- Bjørn Tore Måseid, who was 19 when this documentary was filmed, is from Fauske, Norway. He describes himself this way: “I’m nice, but I’m kind of annoying.” He says it’s hard for him to find and keep friends because he can be socially awkward and often says things that make people feel uncomfortable.
- Romain Le Biannic, who was 18 when this documentary was filmed, is from Groningen, Netherlands. He describes himself this way: “I’m not really a confident person … I hope to overcome social anxiety.” He mentions that he dropped out of high school because he wasn’t doing well in school, and he lost interest in school activities.
In addition to dog sledding, the school’s program involves “survival skills” camping in the woods for a period of time during the brutal winter weather. The documentary shows the students gathered for a welcoming orientation session led by Pasvik Folk High School principal Ketil Foss, who has a kind but firm way of communicating and treats students like a supportive father. Also featured prominently in the documentary are dog sledding teachers Iselin Breivold and Thor-Atle Svortevik.
Some other students are shown talking, but their personal stories are not told in the documentary. Although Pasvik Folk High School is open to students from all over the world, “Folktales” gives some acknowledgement that Pasvik Folk High School has very homogenous racial demographics, with white Western Europeans comprising the overwhelming majority. And even in those demographics, there are minorities: Le Biannic, who is white, says he feels like an outsider because he’s from the Netherlands, not Norway.
The movie shows one unidentified Spanish-speaking male student talking to his mother on the phone. The mother asks him if he’s found any ethnic food markets in Norway. The student somewhat laughs and says there are no ethnic food markets in Norway because there are hardly any ethnic people. Elsewhere, one unidentified Asian female student is seen briefly in the orientation sessions and is never really seen again.
For a documentary about teenagers learning dog sledding, there’s not a lot of footage of the nitty-gritty training instructions that take place on the sleds. And the actual dog sledding scenes are less than 15% of the movie’s screen time. Instead, there are scenes of the students getting to know the dogs (most of dogs are Siberian Huskies) and getting familiar with how to use leashes on the dogs when the dogs are not on the sleds.
There are also cute but somewhat superficial scenes of the students frolicking in the snow, such as overhead shots of them forming play circles, or making “snow angels” by lying on their backs and moving their arms and feet. There’s no question that “Folktales” has gorgeous cinematography (Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo was the chief cinematographer) that showcases the natural beauty of the locations where the documentary was filmed. The documentary falls a bit short when it comes to telling the stories of the living beings who are involved in the dog sledding.
Wik, Måseid and Le Biannic are somewhat presented as narrating observers of their own stories, like reality show cast members, instead of just letting viewers see how these participants evolve, in pure cinéma vérité style. Their physical hardships in the program seem to be glossed over or sidelined. Anyone expecting more of an outdoor adventure-styled documentary will be disappointed because “Folktales” can get sluggish and repetitive with a lot of scenes of casual and innocuous conversations indoors.
People who love dogs will be disappointed that “Folktales” doesn’t delve deeper into stories of the dogs that Wik, Måseid and Le Biannic get attached to the most. Billy is a very sociable male dog that Måseid seems to like a lot. Guinness is a pregnant dog, who is later shown giving birth to her pups. Diamante, nicknamed Dia, is a shy female dog who bonds very early with Le Biannic, who also describes himself as shy. Le Biannic also likes a male dog named Mjød. Saatso is a male dog with cancer, and Wik is shown spending time comforting him. There’s also a cat named Tigergutt, who’s sort of like a mascot for the dog sledding team.
“Folktales” has gotten some criticism from people who think dog sledding is barbaric and cruel to dogs. It’s a bit unrealistic to think that dogs living in arctic environments won’t be shielded from brutally cold weather. There is certainly room for debate on whether or not dog sledding is necessary as a sport. The dogs shown in “Folktales” look like they are being taking care of very well by the humans responsible for taking care of them.
In “Folktales,” the dogs trained for dog sledding actually look eager to pull the sleds, like athletes ready to participate in a physically demanding sport. The main thing in the documentary that might lead anyone to think that the dogs could be abused is how the dogs look restless and uncomfortable when chained on fairly short leashes to dog houses outside before they are taken to the sleds.
It’s not stated or shown in the documentary how long these dogs have to wait outside in the cold under these circumstances. The dogs are seen having indoor shelter for sleeping, and none look like they are underfed—even in the scenes where the students have to “rough it” outdoors during the survival skills part of the program. “Folktales” could have been more diligent and responsible about explaining how the dogs are cared for in this program. It’s not enough information just to show the students feeding and petting the dogs.
Even without these dog stories, the human stories have moments of emotional vulnerability to give “Folktales” substance beyond just showing scenic shots of people and things in snowy wooded locations. Wik opens up about what happened when her father was killed. One of the students (it’s easy to guess who) abruptly quits the program and then returns after having a change of heart. Interestingly, the most emotional moments in “Folktales” are at the graduation ceremony, near the end of the film.
In the first half of the documentary, Ketil makes this comment about the school’s program: “In the beginning, the students think it’s all about the dogs … but the dogs are just the method. Of course, we have the higher goal. The higher goal is the human being. The dogs teach us to be more human, to maybe be more patient, and we might pay attention to others even more.”
“Folktales” is satisfying enough to show the expected outcomes of Wik, Måseid and Le Biannic going through this folk school program. Måseid (an extrovert) and Le Biannic (an introvert) end up becoming friends in the way that’s familiar to anyone who’s seen enough “coming of age” movies where two teenagers with opposite personalities form an seemingly unlikely friendship. “Folktales” is predictable, in the sense that it could also be used as a marketing/public relations tool for the school. You’re not going to hear any criticisms of Pasvik Folk High School in “Folktales.”
It’s not necessarily a bad thing for a documentary to put a positive spin on whatever the focus of the documentary is. “Folktales” has plenty of artfully filmed scenes that make living in the snowy woods of Norway look both enchanting and challenging. What “Folktales” needed was more of a window into the souls of the people who were chosen to be the focus of this documentary, because viewers still won’t know much about these people by the end of the movie.
Magnolia Pictures released “Folktales” in select U.S. cinemas on July 25, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on August 1, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on September 2, 2025.