Folktales is the latest documentary from powerhouse pair Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, whose 2006 documentary Jesus Camp is one of the best docs of the 2000s. (You wonder, while watching, “How on earth did they get this community to trust them?” It’s like Louis Theroux’s doc on hanging out with a group of isolated white nationalists. He actually is invited in – to a degree.) Jesus Camp wasn’t a fluke. They come out with a doc every three or four years – it takes time to embed yourself in insular communities – like New York’s Hasidic community, for example, like they did in One of Us. Folktales is their latest, following three 19-year-old kids attending one of Scandinavia’s “folk schools”, this one located 200 miles above the Arctic Circle. The students learn dog sledding, wilderness survival, hunting, and other traditional “activities”. I reviewed Folktales for Ebert.
