The Film Dispatch – A magazine dedicated to cinema, television and the moving image

Review: The Illusionist (2010)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

What better time to look at one of the finest Edinburgh-set films than at the start of a new academic year. As new students arrive in the city, they bring with them dreams of the stories they hope to weave here. Edinburgh has been the setting for many great stories told on film, from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) to Hallam Foe (2007). The film that I feel best captures how I – born and bred just down the road in Musselburgh – feel about our capital city is The Illusionist.

Continue reading“Review: The Illusionist (2010)”

Sep 5, 2022

Issue 7: Memory

How the 2023 BAFTAs Gave Me a Reason to Actually Watch the Oscars This Year

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

In light of the reflective time of the awards season for film, Yasmeena Sulaiman looks at how even though the BAFTA awards have not always been an indicator of how the Oscars will go, the 2023 Academy Awards is different. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

A Memory of Dialogue

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

Looking back to a conversation between two characters in Jean Luc Godard’s Vivre sa Vie (1962), Weiyi Wang interrogates the camera’s relationship to the emotionality within the sequence. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Turning Red (2022)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 20 March 2023

Michaela Flaherty is catapulted back into her teenage years as she reviews Disney Pixar’s fantastical take on the coming-of-age narrative, Turning Red. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Only Yesterday (1991)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

Looking at Takahata Isao’s animated film Only Yesterday, Katherine Heller discusses its portrayal of childhood and nostalgia and how we can connect with one another through such memories. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Enys Men (2022): A Slice of Land Film

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

How does one discuss, and remember, a film that resists both discussion and memory? Rhys Monaghan unfolds the layers and lands of time that confound in Mark Jenkin’s latest feature, Enys Men. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Chungking Express (1994)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

Wifak Gueddana looks at Wong Kar Wai’s classic Chungking Express and how it explores the fractured memories of the heartbroken by narratively and technically playing with time, space, and narration. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Imagining Nothing: Memory in Oldboy (2003)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 20 March 2023

In Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy, memory seems to be a way of navigating a mystifying present. Ethan Radus argues that in remembering something we do not transport ourselves into a fixed history so much as we begin to reckon with our present day lives. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

After life: The significance of memories to someone experiencing grief

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

In this welcomed analysis of a TV series, Aisling McDonagh explores the relationship between mourning and memory in After Life (2019-2022), a show that delights in the occasional proximity of laughter and pain. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Remembering Avatar’s impact in light of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

James Cameron’s overwhelmingly blue sequel recently burst onto the big screen, but can it measure up to its predecessor, which continues to hold the record for the highest grossing film of all time? Flora Stokes isn’t so sure… Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Re-membering the Other: Mnemonic Sutures in Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

Lim Kai Tjoon analyses how in Hiroshima, Mon Amour, the past is not always an inaccessible aspect of our lives but an embodied experience in the present. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Memories of Movie Watching

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

By walking us back in time with films from The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) to Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), Lesley Finn reminds us of the power of film and family and how those closest to us can inspire a deep fondness for cinema. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory

Fuori Programma

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

In their short film Fuori Programma, PhD student Irene Ros looks at the collective memory of Italian right-wing political violence (1969-1980) through interviews with Italian women who were young adults at the time. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 7: Memory, The Film Dispatch

Remembering Old Hollywood: Memory in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

By The Film Dispatch 19 March 2023 19 March 2023

Returning to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a divisive love letter to Old Hollywood, Grace LaNasa unpacks the nostalgia and fondness the director imbues in his film through the reimaging of reality and a glamorisation of the past. Mar 19, 2023

Issue 6: Halloween

Resistance and Compromise : The Phantom Lover (1995)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

The Phantom Lover is a melodrama between Danping Song (Leslie Cheung) and Yunyan Du (Jacqueline Wu). Nov 7, 2022

Issue 6: Halloween

Short Review for The Wicker Man (1973)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) was an offbeat horror film. Nov 7, 2022

Issue 6: Halloween

Death and the Present World – Coco (2017)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

Coco (2017) offers the illusion of a link between the real world and the return of dead souls, through the memories and thoughts of the living, personified in photographs, which the souls are able to return to on the annual El Día de los Muertos. Nov 7, 2022

Issue 6: Halloween

Short Review for The Addams Family (1991)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

The Addams Family is a black humour films with a fun, playful and macabre tone. Its idea can be traced back to Charles Addams comic and the adaptation of cartoon in TV featuring the life of gothic family from 1912 to 1988 when its ideas of weird but funny monster …

Issue 6: Halloween

The Legacy of a Horror Icon: Halloween (1978) to Halloween Ends (2022)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

In an era of media dominated by the sequel and reboots, no one was surprised to see that the horror icon Michael Myers was coming back to the big screen. Hollywood’s attempts at revitalising a franchise appear to have one question in common: how is what we—the modern audience—think and …

Issue 6: Halloween

Short Review for Coraline (2009)

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

Directed by Henry Selick, Coraline (2009) is a stop-motion animated film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name, featuring a gothic-style horror and adventurous story of our leading little girl Coraline. Her name, differing from a much more common name “Caroline”, clearly grants her a discernable scent of …

Issue 6: Halloween

Interview with the Vampire (2022): the Beginning of An Immortal Universe…

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

After 28 years, Interview with the Vampire written by Anne Rice has once again been adapted for theatrical release. With Rice’s passing, her son’s involvement in the production, actors of color in the lead roles, this artwork has once again evoked the imagination of audiences. Nov 7, 2022

Issue 6: Halloween

Titane (2021) Review: Who’s Afraid of a Big Bad Genre Expansion?

By The Film Dispatch 7 November 2022 27 February 2023

Julia Ducournau’s 2021 horror-drama fuses the scaffold of horror with shifting senses of gender, belonging, the body, sex, and technology. The product is a redefinition of the genre in which the object of fear isn’t what threatens to harm our bodies but the body itself. Nov 7, 2022

Issue 5: Storytelling

Imagination on Screen

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

To have a strong or wild imagination has been a quality both admired and ridiculed within society. Amelie (2001, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet) tells a story of an emotionally intelligent and eccentric protagonist through such an intense visual and audible imaginative experience, that one simply cannot ignore. Sep 5, 2022

Issue 5: Storytelling

Transforming Oral Tradition Through Cinema

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

Every society tells stories; this is the way people make sense of the world around them. Cinema has the ability to animate these stories on screen, using a multiplicity of tools, stitching together and presenting these tales visually, resulting in a richly layered, multi-sensory experience. Whose stories are deemed valuable …

Issue 5: Storytelling

Interview with a Director: Electric Malady (2022)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

With the Edinburgh International Film Festival opening tonight, we spoke to director Marie Lidén about her documentary feature – Electric Malady (2022) – which is screening at the festival.

Issue 5: Storytelling

75th Edinburgh International Film Festival: The Closing Gala – After Yang (2022)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

“The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said: What the caterpillar calls ‘the end’ the rest of the world calls a butterfly” (After Yang, 2022). Sep 5, 2022

Issue 5: Storytelling

Review: Return to Dust (2022)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

Return to Dust (Yin Ru Chen Yan, 2022) is a film written and directed by Ruijun Li and selected for the main competition of the 72nd Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of two lonely individuals, Youtie Ma (Renlin Wu) and Guiying Cao (Hai-Qing), who are abandoned by …

Issue 5: Storytelling

Review: Winners (2022)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 7 September 2022

Screened at EIFF, Winners is a film about a very specific kind of winner that every film buff is acutely aware of – the award winner. Sep 5, 2022

Issue 5: Storytelling

Review: Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

Last Year at Marienbad (L’année dernière à Marienbad, Alain Resnais, 1961) is the type of film that requires savouring after watching. Sep 5, 2022

Issue 5: Storytelling

5 Films at EIFF 2022

By David Sorfa 5 September 2022 5 September 2022

While there were many intriguing films shown at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, here are five that stood out to me. Sep 5, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Drag: Full of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent

By David Sorfa 22 June 2022 2 September 2022

Drag. What started as an acronym for “dressed as a girl” in recent history has grown to be one of the most powerful tools for queer expression, queer joy, and motivating political change.

Issue 4: Pride

Cannes 2022: The Life Cycle of a Film

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 8 September 2022

On the closing day of the Cannes Film Festival, a friend was beside me and said, “It’s like I’m just getting used to and familiar with it all, and it’s coming to an end”. During our three brief days at the festival, in addition to watching the films themselves, we …

Issue 4: Pride

Cannes 2022: The Last Picture Show (1971)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 8 September 2022

It was surprising to watch The Last Picture Show (1971) as the last picture show on the beach at Cannes. It was a fantastic experience to simultaneously enjoy the seascape and an excellent film. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Cannes 2022: Broker (2022)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 8 September 2022

Broker (2022) is another example of director Koreeda’s personal style. Controversial characters – such as baby traders and mothers who abandon their children – are sympathetically portrayed in his film, with warm humanity. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Review: The Revenge of the Shiny Shrimps (2022)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

When The Revenge of the Shiny Shrimps (2022, dir. Cedric Le Gallo and Maxime Govare) opens with a chorus of men in drag lip-syncing to Hit Me Baby One More Time, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were about to watch a light-hearted, camp comedy. Which you are but, the …

Issue 4: Pride

Review: The Birdcage (1996)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

“It’s Like Riding a Psychotic Horse towards a Burning Stable.” Mike Nichols’ 1996 film The Birdcage is extremely ahead of its time as a queer film. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Review: Modern Love Mumbai (2022)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

Love, food and music have always been intertwined and Modern Love Mumbai’s “Baai” episode perfectly encapsulates this. It reminds me of a quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, that says “If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may …

Issue 4: Pride

Feminist Ways of Subversion

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

In classical Hollywood films, “A woman’s attempt to be both subject and object of the gaze has backfired” (Balsom, 2020). In patriarchal culture, female characters can only be gazed at, they don’t have the same right to gaze as the male ones do. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Visions of Gideon

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

Our previous issue – The Gaze – was about the act of looking and many of our contributors turned to Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. While reading their pieces, I was reminded of another successful queer film: Call Me By Your Name (2017, dir. Luca Guadagnino). The …

Issue 4: Pride

Female Gaze in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

With the modernization of society and the surge in feminist and LGBTQ+ movement, we’ve seen more and more lesbian stories moved to big screens, either represented correctly or falsely. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Heartstopper: Pulling at the Heartstrings of the Queer Community

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 18 September 2022

The new smash hit Netflix production Heartstopper was released on the 22nd of April, 2022. In the short time span since its release however, it has won the affections of not only the queer community, but the world. Jun 17, 2022

Issue 4: Pride

Queer Cinema: A Personal Memoir

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

Growing up as a creative teenager in Dundee in the early 1970s wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, and I’m fond of saying that my life didn’t begin until I went to university in Glasgow in 1975 and landed feet-first in the explosion of culture that was the city …

Issue 4: Pride

“That’s me!” Representation in Velvet Goldmine (1998)

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 2 September 2022

Halfway through Todd Haynes’ glam-rock biopic Velvet Goldmine (1998), teenage Arthur (Christian Bale) sits with his parents in their suburban living room, watching a televised press interview with glam rock icon, Brian Slade (Jonathan Meyers). As Slade languidly expounds his views on marriage and sexual orientation – “Most people are …

Issue 4: Pride

Refusing the Gaze

By David Sorfa 17 June 2022 18 September 2022

If we are used to Ang Lee’s straightforward portrayal of bodily exposure in Lust, Caution, then the gay-focused Brokeback Mountain could be described as an atypical Ang Lee-style queer film. The sexual images that receive the gaze in Lust, Caution are that refuse the gaze in Brokeback Mountain, which uses …

Issue 4: Pride

Translation: New Visions Short Film Competition

By David Sorfa 11 May 2022 2 September 2022

Our Chief Editor, Niamh Carey-Furness (she/her) sat down with Andrew Campbell (he/them), Youth and Events Manager at Edinburgh International Film Festival, to talk about New Visions Short Film Competition. New Visions is a youth-focussed short film competition created by the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Running since 2018, the competition …

Issue 4: Pride

New Visions Short Film Competition

By David Sorfa 9 May 2022 2 September 2022

Our Chief Editor, Niamh Carey-Furness (she/her) sat down with Andrew Campbell (he/them), Youth and Events Manager at Edinburgh International Film Festival, to talk about New Visions Short Film Competition. New Visions is a youth-focussed short film competition created by the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Running since 2018, the competition …

Issue 3: The Gaze

Gazing at Vincent

By David Sorfa 15 April 2022 2 September 2022

Van Gogh Alive – the touring exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous paintings – has recently arrived in Edinburgh. What sets the exhibition apart from others is that, instead of displaying the artist’s work framed and on a wall, Van Gogh Alive projects them onto huge screens. Apr 15, 2022

Issue 3: The Gaze

Youth Film Access Festival

By David Sorfa 15 April 2022 2 September 2022

Last weekend, the fourth edition of the Youth Film Access Festival took place in Glasgow. The festival focuses on young people aged 14-25 by not only providing a platform for aspiring filmmakers to showcase their films but also, to network with industry professionals and be exposed to a variety of …

Issue 3: The Gaze

Glasgow Film Festival 2022: An Experience

By David Sorfa 15 April 2022 2 September 2022

As an audience member at the 2022 Glasgow Film Festival, one of the most pleasurable parts of the festival was to feel its atmosphere. Being present means that you are wrapped up in a series of rituals, events, screenings, and atmospheres. Apr 15, 2022

Issue 3: The Gaze

Glasgow Film Festival 2022: The Braves (2021)

By David Sorfa 15 April 2022 2 September 2022

Glasgow Film Festival’s motto is ‘cinema for all’. What I enjoyed about the festival was that this ‘all’ included volunteers. This year, the festival ran from the 2nd-12th of March and I volunteered during four of the days. Apr 15, 2022

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