August is supposedly one of the most-awaiting months for film enthusiasts as people gather at the Cultural Center of the Philippines to witness masterpieces from independent filmmakers and directors.

But, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, for the first time in its 16-year running, the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival will push through online this year, as the country’s biggest independent film festival will be screened on Vimeo— an online video platform. Although unlike the usual, the festival will feature 10 short films this year instead of full length films.

In an interview of CNN with Cinemalaya festival director Chris Millado, the director discussed what to look forward for in this year’s independent film festival.

"This time we're migrating the whole festival [online], not only the competition but the other aspects of the festival as well like the talk backs, the interactions with filmmakers and so on", the director said.

Millado also discussed the challenges that the film festival encounters upon the preparation for this year’s edition.

"So the very first challenge to face was the technical problems of course. We tried it out in our early experiments and as we speak we continue to figure out very technical things in terms of ticketing portals and uploading material, and how to make things a little bit more interactive than just having our viewers watch the materials online", he said.

When asked what made the director decide to do short films this year, he said that this was because the filmmakers who had already started shooting their film had to cancel the production.

“It came for a circumstance that a lot of full length features which were in competition had to stop production because of COVID-19. So a lot of them were already shooting in location but they had to cancel or suspend their production”, the director stated.

“So definitely they could not make it to the deadline, so we had a conversation with our filmmakers and we decided that we would postpone their premieres for next year's festival. So our 10 full-length features will be featured on next year's festival hopefully on our live venue" he added.

It was in March when the country started to experience cancellations of major public events and gatherings. With the dire situation in mind, the Cinemalaya committee, after series of discussion, decided that they will push through with a portion of the festival.

Here are the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival 2020 10 finalists who will compete in the Short Film Category this year:

“Ang Gasgas na Plaka” ni Lolo Bert by Janina Gacosta and Cheska Marfori

“Ang Pagpakalma sa Unos (To Calm the Pig Inside)” by Joanna Vasquez Arong

“Excuse Me Miss Miss, Miss” by Sonny Calvento

“Fatigued” by James Robin M. Mayo

“Living Things” by Martika Ramirez Escobar

“Quing Lalam ning Aldo (Under the Sun)” by Reeden Fajardo

“Pabasa Kan Pasyon” by Hubert Tibi

“Tokwifi” by Carla Pulido Ocampo

“Utwas” by Richard Jeroui Salvadico and Arlie Sweet Sumagaysay

“The Slums” by Jan Andrei Cobey.

You can watch the trailers on Cinemalaya Facebook page.

Visit CCP and Cinemalaya website for further updates. You may also follow their official social media accounts.