In 2016, the festival gained buzz after the EXECOM {Executive Committee} announced the top 8 entries for the 2016 edition. Different from past years, the movies of the certified box-office drawers Vice Ganda & Coco Martin's "The Super Parental Guardians", Vic Sotto's "Enteng Kabisote 10 and the Abangers", Regal Entertainment's "" and Vhong Navarro's "Mang Kepweng Returns" was rejected in that edition. But despite good reviews about the 8 entries, the film festival only grossed , or a drop from 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival's . And the edition of the festival showed only Indie films. The idea of indie-only film was later scrapped and commercial films was allowed again.