Dr David Sorfa (MA, PhD)
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies (on Research Leave for 2023)

- Film Studies
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 3637
- Email: David.Sorfa@ed.ac.uk
- Web: Edinburgh Research Explorer profile
Address
- Street
-
Room 4.03
50 George Square - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9LH
Availability
I am on Research Leave until January 2024
Background
Dr David Sorfa is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh and editor-in-chief of the journal Film-Philosophy. He has written on Michael Haneke, Czech film, surrealism, belief in cinema and the philosophical implications of point-of-view. He has particular interests in film-philosophy, Existentialism, phenomenology, the work of Jacques Derrida and the presentation of thought and thinking in cinema.
He has acted as Programme Director of the MSc and PhD in Film Studies and as the Postgraduate Research Director for the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures. He was previously Head of Film Studies at Liverpool John Moores University.
Qualifications
PhD (University of Kent)
MA (University of Cape Town)
Responsibilities & affiliations
- Film-Philosophy Editorial Board
- Convenor of the Edinburgh University Press Academic Committee
- Edinburgh Network for Studies in Secrecy
- Member of the SGSAH Media, Communications, Film & TV Catalyst
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Membership
- British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)
Previous
- Programme Director of the MSc and PhD in Film Studies (2013-2022)
- Postgraduate Research Director (2020-2022)
- Member of the Board Trustees of the Africa in Motion Film Festival (2015 - 2019)
Undergraduate teaching
Postgraduate teaching
- Film Theory
- Film-Philosophy
- Film and Existentialism
- Research Methods in Film Studies
Previous:
- Introduction to European Cinema
- Film Adaptation
- Cinema Auteurs
- Film Criticism and Analysis
- Comparative Literature (2 seminars on Jacques Derrida)
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
No
Areas of interest for supervision
Unfortunately I am unavailable for new PhD supervision in 2024/25.
Otherwise, I consider PhD applications in the areas of film-philosophy, film theory and cinematic aesthetics. I am also interested in projects related to European and classical Hollywood cinema.
If you are interested in applying for the PhD in Film Studies please go to: https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/film/phd-film-studies
Current PhD students supervised
- Coming-of-Age in American, British and Czech/Slovak Cinema
- Existentialism and the War Film
- Justice in Contemporary American Horror Film
- Lars von Trier and Søren Kierkegaard
- Epistemic Injustice, Fiction and Reality in Cinema
- H. P. Lovecraft and Postliterary Adaptation
- Irene Dunne and Classical Hollywood Cinema
Past PhD students supervised
- 2023: PhD: Contemporary Poetic Cinema through the Lens of Traditional Chinese Poetics
- 2023: PhD: The Upside Down of Memory: Nostalgia and Dystopia in Contemporary American Science Fiction Television
- 2022: PhD: Queer Spies in British Cold War Culture: Literature, Film, Theatre and Television - http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/1883
- 2021: PhD: Late Night Double Feature: Queer Monstrosity and Cult Cinema - http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/1531
- 2021: PhD: Chilean Film Festivals: Promotors of Film Culture and Cinephilia in Chile
- 2020: PhD: Absurd Black Humour as Social Criticism in Contemporary European Cinema
- 2020: PhD: Cinema and Heidegger: The Call to Being in Ozu, Antonioni, Tarr
- 2019: PhD: The Interpreter of Desires: Iranian Cinema and Psychoanalysis
- 2019: PhD: Gesture in French Post-New Wave Cinema
- 2019: PhD: Broken Images: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Cinematic Iconoclasm
- 2018: PhD: The Liminal and the Invisible: Trauma and the Human Trafficking Survivor in the UK
- 2017: PhD: Spirits in Solitude: Romanticism in the Films of Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson
- 2016: PhD: Silent Era Adaptations of 19th and 20th Century Gothic Novels and Psychological and Aesthetic Interpretations of the Monster Figure
- 2015: PhD: Aesthetics of Destruction in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema
- 2014: PhD: Visceral Material: Cinematic Bodies on Screen
- 2014: PhD: The Communicating Village: Humphrey Jennings and Surrealism
Research summary
- Film-philosophy and theory
- Czech, European and classical Hollywood cinema
- Art house film
- Post-structuralism and phenomenology
- Existentialism
- Subjectivity in cinema
- Genre, especially the Detective film, the Western and Romantic Comedy
- Surrealism
- Film Adaptation
Research activities
- The Lad Meets the Existentialists: Tony Hancock, The Rebel and Rendezvous in July
- Existentialism and Film Studies: Party Girl (1958) Precedes Party Girl (1995)
- Can We Take Existentialism Seriously? Tony Hancock and The Rebel (1961)
- Interrogating the Modes of Videographic Criticism
- Cinemas of Freedom and Alienation: Frantz Fanon and Postcolonial Existentialism
-
The loves of a system: Miloš Forman and Barrandov
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Accepted/In press) -
Bohuslav Brouk
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474208031.01644
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published) -
Seeing oneself speak: Speech and thought in first-person camera cinema
In:
JOMEC Journal: Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, pp. 104-121
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/jomec.185
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Belief in film: A defence of false emotion and Brother Sun, Sister Moon
(21 pages)
In:
Film and Philosophy, vol. 22, pp. 36-57
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/filmphil2018224
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Review of Karl, Lars and Pavel Skopal (eds.): Cinema in Service of the State: Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960
In:
Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17892/app.2017.0005.74
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (E-pub ahead of print) -
Irony, sexism and magic in Paolo Sorrentino’s films
(16 pages)
In:
Studies in European Cinema, vol. 14, pp. 200-215
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2017.1386368
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Introduction: Cinema Is
(197 pages)
In:
Film-Philosophy, vol. 20, pp. 195
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2016.0010
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Editorial (Published) -
The touch of history: A phenomenological approach to 1960s Czech cinema
(20 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405140.001.0001
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
What is Film-Philosophy?
(5 pages)
In:
Film-Philosophy, vol. 20, pp. 1-5
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Ester Krumbachová
(10 pages)
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
There is nothing outside the real: Preston Sturges on André Bazin
Research output: › Digital or Visual Products (Published) -
Entries on Kolya (1996), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Closely Observed Trains (1966), A Page of Madness (1926)
(16 pages)
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published) -
Phenomenology and Film
(6 pages)
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published) -
Beyond work and sex in Czech cinema
(18 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137370860_7
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Review of A Society in Distress: The Image of the Czech Republic in Contemporary Czech Feature Film (Jan Čulík)
(1 page)
In:
Viewfinder, pp. 23
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Laura Mulvey
(10 pages)
Research output: › Chapter (Published) -
The Past is a Different Country: Two Czechoslovak Films Adrift in Time: Morgiana / Adelheid: Studies in Eastern European Cinema
(4 pages)
In:
Studies in Eastern European Cinema, vol. 3, pp. 245-248
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/seec.3.2.231_5
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition (2010) by Peter Hames: The Slavic Review
(2 pages)
In:
Slavic Review: Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, vol. 71, pp. 167-168
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5612/slavicreview.71.1.0167
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses (2010) by Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener: New Review of Film and Television Studies
(4 pages)
In:
New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 10, pp. 311-314
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2012.664051
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Mother Joan and Her Discontents: On Mother Joan of the Angels / Matka Joanna od Aniołów (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1960)
(11 pages)
In:
Second Run Booklet, pp. 7-17
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
- 2016 - 2020: MA Film Studies, King's College London
- 2016 - 2020: BA Film Studies and English, MLitt Film Studies, University of Dundee
- 2010 - 2014: BA Film, Falmouth University
- 2010 - 2014: BA Film, University of the West of England, Bristol
- 2008 - 2012: MA Screening Europe, University of Swansea