2020 Metro Manila Film Festival

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Metro Manila Film Festival was modified into a digital event. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) announced on November 24, 2020, that the film festival would go digital due to the general community quarantine (GCQ) in the Metro area, in partnership with Upstream and GMovies, a streaming provider and ticket provider respectively, to stream the official entries. The festival is also co-presented by the telecommunications company Globe Telecom.[2]

The Parade of Stars and the Gabi ng Parangal (Awards Night), both part of the annual MMFF, will also be streamed online in compliance with health and safety protocols for COVID-19. This annual event is primarily to promote and enhance the preservation of the Philippine cinema. The proceeds from the film festival will go to a number of beneficiaries in the film industry.[3] The Parade of the Stars, the film festival's traditional float motorcade, was also modified due to the pandemic.[4]

Previously, the Metro Manila Film Festival usually had eight feature films as official entries which are screened in cinemas across the Philippines. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the temporary closure of cinemas in the country, the film festival was modified and all entries were streamed online instead. The number of entries was also expanded to ten from eight,[6] with all ten entries being announced on November 24, 2020.[2] The ten films part of the "digital" film festival were made available starting December 25, through Upstream. The official run of the film festival will be until January 8, 2021.[2]

The film festival entries were also made available to people outside the Philippines. The move was made specifically with the Overseas Filipino Workers demographic in mind.[5]

The Parade of Stars was held as a virtual event prior to the film festival's official opening day. Traditionally, the event is organized as a float parade but the event was instead held as a 4-hour virtual event. The 2020 MMFF was opened by MMDA Chairman Danilo Lim and Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte since Quezon City is the designated host of the film festival. The cast and director of each of the MMFF's ten official entry films answered questions from the audience and select members of the media. As part of a "virtual" parade, a "virtual" float was featured prior to each of the ten official entries' segment.[4][12]

The official entries for the 2020 Metro Manila Film Festival were not screened in cinemas, which were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the films were made available online through transactional video on demand platform, Upstream. Tickets for the films were made available through GMovies, a payment platform by Globe Telecom. Tickets were made available for purchase starting December 7 for patrons based in the Philippines and on December 18 for people outside the country but the films themselves were only watchable starting December 25, 2020, the official opening day of the film festival. The films is available to stream up to five days after ticket purchase, but once the film was played, the certain media is only viewable for 24 hours. The films can be rewatched for unlimited times within said 24-hour period from the first playback.[13]

The Gabi ng Parangal (transl. Awards Night) of the 2020 Metro Manila Film Festival was held virtually on December 27, 2020.[12][14] The awards night was hosted by Marco Gumabao and Kylie Verzosa from Globe Telecom's Project Space studio in Makati.[15]

Awardees were announced via the MMDA's Official Facebook Page.[16] The nominees were announced on December 24, 2020.[17]