Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the Directors of FOLKTALES

By Jessica Herndon

One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there's always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!

Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have a storied history at the Sundance Film Festival. The longtime directing team's first film to premiere at the Fest was 12th & Delaware in 2010. Through the years, the pair has gone on to premiere three other movies on the mountain, and in 2020, Ewing debuted her first narrative feature, I Carry You With Me.

But this year, they are both back again with FOLKTALES, a documentary screening in the Premieres section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The film is a sweet, uplifting, and breathtakingly picturesque portrait of a group of teens who travel to Arctic Norway to attend the traditional Pasvik Folk High School for a year. The school welcomes anyone seeking a year of independence before becoming an adult and uses arctic survival skills and sled dogs to cultivate confidence and self-reliance.

Gen Z is gravely misunderstood, Ewing and Grady say. This is a coming-of-age story where the subjects are all seeking to become better versions of themselves as they navigate a complicated, high-pressure world. Their story is about the future, and what could be more important than that?

Since Ewing and Grady work so hand-in-hand, it should be no surprise that the directing duo would answer interview questions about their film together. Below, they discuss why they admire their film's subjects, what it was like working with a Norwegian crew, and what happened to their cameras and drones while filming in temperatures below zero.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/give-me-the-backstory-get-to-know-heidi...
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