EDITORIAL – Call for Reviews.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CINEMA
“The International Journal of Cinema Celebrates the 30th Edition of AVANCA with a Special Issue Dedicated to the Festival's Film Heritage.”
"Thirty Years of Cinema at AVANCA: A Call for Critical Revisitations."
"Revisiting Three Decades of AVANCA: Call for Film Reviews for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Cinema."
Over the last three decades, the AVANCA – International Meeting of Cinema, Television, Video and Multimedia has built a distinctive place within the international audiovisual landscape. Since 1997, thousands of works from diverse cultural and geographical contexts have found in Avanca a space for discovery, dialogue and reflection among filmmakers, researchers and audiences.
To mark the 30th edition of the AVANCA Festival, the International Journal of Cinema (IJC) will publish a special issue entirely devoted to the films that have shaped the festival's history. This commemorative volume aims to become an exercise in critical memory, revisiting works that, at different moments, have contributed to the identity of AVANCA, whether as award-winning films or as part of its Official Selection.
Researchers, scholars, students, critics and all those interested in film studies are invited to select a work from the festival's extensive archive and contribute a review that explores its artistic, aesthetic, technological, cultural or historical significance.
Both feature-length and short films are eligible, encompassing the broad spectrum of audiovisual practices traditionally represented at AVANCA, including fiction, documentary, animation and video works. The complete history of films screened since the festival's first edition is available on the official AVANCA website.
To facilitate access to the selected works, films from the AVANCA Festival Film Library will be available for viewing by appointment during the festival, which will take place in Avanca from 29 July to 2 August 2026.
Submissions may take one of two formats:
Short reviews: 750–1,500 words;
Long reviews: 1,500–3,000 words.
Depending on their length and editorial considerations, accepted reviews may be published either in the online or printed editions of the International Journal of Cinema.
The selection of submissions will be conducted by the journal's Editorial Board, through a double-blind peer-review process. Each published review will be assigned its own DOI (Digital Object Identifier), ensuring its integration within international scholarly dissemination and indexing systems.
Publication in the International Journal of Cinema is entirely free of charge. In recognition of their contribution to this commemorative issue, authors whose reviews are accepted for publication will also benefit from a special registration discount for AVANCA|CINEMA 2027 – International Conference Cinema – Art, Technology, Communication.
More than a celebration of an anniversary, this special issue seeks to contribute to the construction of a critical memory of AVANCA's thirty years, bringing together multiple perspectives on films that testify to the aesthetic, cultural and technological diversity of contemporary cinema.
We therefore invite the international academic and cinephile communities to take part in this collective celebration, transforming the festival's history into a renewed space for research, reflection and writing on cinema.
Calendar:
Expression of interest – until July 27, 2026;
Film screenings – July 29 to August 2, 2026;
Submission of reviews – October 31, 2026;
Publication – January 2027.
Requests for information, expression of interest, scheduling of screenings, and submission of reviews should always be sent to the following address: conferencia.avanca@gmail.com