Dirs: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady | Norway, Doc, 106’
Kids take comfort from the animal kingdom, in the shape of dogs, to help them through adolescence in this new documentary from Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing. The directors also look at how to get teenagers off their mobiles in a frosty arctic retreat in Pasvik Folk High School in the north of Norway.
Does it succeed? Well this coming of age crowd-pleaser certainly gives the young people food for thought. One of the girls, Hege, has just lost her father. Bjørn Tore has low self-esteem and Romain, who is Dutch, is shy and anxious.
So what better than a trip to the frozen north, a spot of dogsledding with Siberian huskies and a series of in-house lectures to give these Norwegians a new mindset to discover their own inner strength and potential by encouraging to fend for themselves, and the dogs.
There are certainly big issues to tackle in this remote and inhospitable setting where hearts are soon shared and souls laid bare amongst their furry friends. The dogs’ upkeep will become their responsibility, they will even learn to howl like canines.
The folk high school system was established to educate rural residents, but now attracts teenagers from all over the world with a gap year that aims to help them tackle anxiety and develop confidence to flourish for the rest lives.
Technology and social media is left behind and replaced by self-awareness as they go back to nature and activate ‘Stone Age’ brains. In looking after the dogs these young people discover their own humanity and become responsible for another living being, not to mention surviving in subzero temperatures, making their own fires and hot water.
DoP Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo and Tor Edvin Eliasse create extraordinary widescreen images of the snow forests and Arctic sunsets often using a bird’s eye drone. A fabulous film that should be shown in schools everywhere @Meredith Taylor
In UK & Irish cinemas and on digital 5th December