The Festival's Best Picture was awarded to Premiere Productions' Taga sa Panahon. The awards were spread equally and the category for Best Child Performer was first introduced in this year received by Julie Vega.[1]
The period of the Philippine film's artistic accomplishment begins in 1975 (three years after the dictator Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law) and ending in the February 1986 People Power Revolution where the dictator Marcos lost his power. Nora Aunor's Bona and Himala in 1980 and 1982 respectively (both official entries of MMFF) achieves to represent the period where the accomplishments of two government institutions contributed to the emergence of New Cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. Her films are cinematically accomplished despite being politically engaged films, and the MMFF is able to make these films flourish during this period.[4]