Patriotic Lesson
Welcome to a singing contest at a Polish primary school, where children are performing patriotic songs full of heroism, bravery, blood, and tears. Closely observing the performers and their audience, the tension between parents and teachers, and the deliberations of the jury, the film poses questions about the meaning of patriotism and the mechanisms of institutional indoctrination which are passed down from generation to generation.
Filip Jacobson graduated from the Film Studies line at Lodz University in Poland, and the Gdynia Film School in Poland as a director. He currently studies at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Along with taking part in a student exchange program at EICTV in Cuba, Jacobson has participated in several workshops: EsoDoc Workshops, Goshort Talent Campus, Polska Doc, and the Berlinale Talent Campus. He is involved in social documentary projects that search for new forms of expression in internet-based projects and through quasi-documentary forms. He has also organized film workshops for children and youth in Turkey, Romania and Poland. His first short film, Walk was awarded the Student Jury Prize at the Krakow Film Festival in 2012. In 2015, together with artist Angelika Herta, he created a web-documentary, www.Bobkowski-co-dalej.pl. The project was shot in France and was based on the journey of the Polish writer Andrzej Bobkowski. He recently finished shooting his feature-length debut, Foreigner, in Cuba.