 The film festival is organized by the Cinemalaya Foundation, Inc. with the support of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Econolink Investments, Inc.

Each year, the Festival provides "seed investments" of ₱500,000 (US$10,000~) to ten independent filmmakers.It has since been increased to ₱1,000,000 (US$20,000~) since 2019.These ten "finalists" are culled from hundreds of submissions from all over the Philippines.