Film Review: Folktales

5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | Aug. 16, 2025

Since the mid 19th century, immigrant settlers from the Scandinavian lands of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have been leaving their mark on Anishnaabek Aki, these spectacular lands of abundance connected by powerful waters we get to call home.

As modern Michiganders, we are still obsessed with all things Arctic: ice fishing, cross-country, sledding, saunas, minimalist design, and the concepts of hygge (coziness), lagom (moderation), and lykke (good fortune). We fantasize from the 45th parallel that Nordic life (at the 69th parallel) is perfectly harmonious, elegantly simple, and disconnected from the rest of the world.

In the moving and beautifully-photographed documentary Folktales, filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady both challenge and then validate some of those myths through their true story of modern European teenagers sent to Norway to experience a unique “outdoor” high school.

Here, the classes involve how to make fire, survive outdoors under the lights of the aurora borealis, and most central to the plot: how to care for, control, and travel with sled dogs.

Set in a remote location hoping to disconnect them from their screens while reigniting their primal minds, Folktales follows their raw personal journeys at the same time their teachers/elders urgently try to pass on the “old ways” before they are lost.

Through physical, mental, and emotional struggles, some students attain fresh self-reflection and a new sense of empowerment on their way to adulthood. Others struggle and resist the experience, unable to fully commit themselves or burdened by past trauma they are only starting to understand.

Their assigned sled dogs become their companions and vessels for learning, and each student’s relationship to the dogs themselves (and what the animals teach them), is surprising and tender and powerful. “Dog people” will be especially moved, and many outdoor screenings of the film at festivals and special events have welcomed canines as part of the audience.

For younger viewers, the Gen-Z angst seen on-screen and through intimate confessionals will be all too familiar. For older viewers, the film offers an unfiltered insight into how the “most-connected” of generations can still feel such isolation and loneliness. But through the arc of following three main subjects over one epic year, both sides may feel the same hope for the future. I sure did.

Such is the touch of a great documentary worth the watch: one that draws you in, allows you to recognize vulnerable humanity, and then leaves you with a more profound understanding of it no matter who you are, no matter how old you may be.

While filmed overseas, Folktales is accessible to all with about one-third of the film in English, one-third with subtitles, and the rest overwhelmingly visual (speaking in the universal language of images only cinema still provides). Through their lenses, this epic wilderness and the thrill of dog-sledding comes alive and draws you in.

Directors Ewing and Grady have been doing this now for decades, with previous deep-dive stories like Jesus Camp and Detropia and Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, among other award-winning docs. They leave behind complex time capsules of the here and now that will still be relevant for generations to come.

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Folktales was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and is currently in select theaters nationwide and then available to stream on multiple platforms starting September 2, 2025. The film is not rated, but is appropriate to watch with your kids and might even provoke some unexpected conversations.