HER OWN METHOD FESTIVAL CHIEF WATCHES EVERY FILM SUBMITTED.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

TIFFANY NAIMAN doesn't entirely get why people in the film industry complain so much.

``It's like, man, we're not working in a factory somewhere many, many hours, and our hands aren't brittle and we're not farming the land,'' she says. ``We're having fun. We get to watch movies.''

Naiman watches more than most. Her year-round job is director of marketing at First Look Media, a position that requires screening features to select scenes for trailers and images for posters.

On the side, she programs film festivals. This week, she's up to her elbows in the last-minute details of the seventh annual Method Fest Independent Film Festival, which celebrates recent films whose greatest strength is in the performances. It opens Friday in Calabasas.

Programming it is a juggling act that involves multiple aims: meet the mission of the festival, deliver a variety of titles, pin down some choice premieres, entice moviegoers and industry types, and fit everything into an eight-day schedule at two venues, relying on your instincts to judge whether a show can fill a big theater or is worth two plays in a smaller one.

While some festival programmers have a committee do the first weeding of submissions, Naiman takes some pride in being the first and only judge of which films make the cut at Method Fest. This season, that meant watching a record 578 films, about 150 to 200 of them features.

``I personally want to see every film that comes in,'' she said at the First Look offices, which overlook the Laemmle Sunset 5 Cinemas in West Hollywood. ``I feel like, if I'm the program director, that's what you're paying your entry fee for, is for me to watch your movie, not just some committee of people that we've gotten together.''

That's not to say that there's no other input. She seeks second and third opinions if a film rubs her the wrong way but her gut tells her others may like it - or if she finds a film perhaps too amusing.

``If I'm like, 'I thought this was really funny, but maybe it's not. Take a look at this. I'm punchy,' '' she said. ``Definitely there was one of those this year. They're like, 'What?' And I said, 'That's why I was asking.' ''

The films seem to trickle in early in the submission process and then pour into her office by January and February, after the Sundance and Slamdance festivals kick the season into high gear.

That high-season Hollywood assault on the ski community of Park City, Utah, is all about movies for Naiman. Each year, Method Fest director Don Franken hosts a major party to catch up with familiar filmmakers, schmooze with new ones and get the word out about his festival.

``I saw five movies a day, and I was sick,'' she said. ``And we're on the streets handing out postcards and constantly talking about the festival, which is what you have to do, or else nobody's going to care or know about it.''

She also touches base with filmmakers whose work she has seen, to learn whether they have another movie ready, and seeks out student projects.

As she views the submitted videos, Naiman makes notes (``I do a lot of 'This is a maybe' in my chart'').

``It's the things you get in the beginning where you think, 'Wait, I'm waiting for something better.' So you have to go back and revisit those,'' she said. ``A lot of films get watched twice, sometimes three times, throughout the process.''

Melissa Painter, writer-director of the opening feature, ``Steal Me,'' was courted at Sundance to enter her film in the Method Fest after Franken and Naiman saw it. But she said there is politicking involved in routine festival submissions.

``In the end, festivals each have their own personalities and purposes,'' Painter said. ``Whether someone falls in love with your movie or not is a subjective thing. Sometimes the push is just for getting the right person to look at it.''

The Method Fest's focus on acting may seem to leave the field too broad. After all, without the funding for effects, pyrotechnics and chase scenes, aren't all modestly budgeted films about acting?

``I don't think that (acting) - at least in the low-budget films I've seen - has been what they were going for,'' Naiman said with a laugh. But she enjoys the variety the Method Fest is able to cover.

``We can show thrillers, and we can show period pieces, and we can show indie stuff, and we can show things like 'Brothers' - it's a foreign film. And they can all be judged on the same plane because it is about the acting.''

Painter said she will take ``Steal Me,'' her third feature, to other festivals this year.

``I think festivals fall within two categories,'' Painter said. ``There are festivals that are primarily business festivals. And then Method Fest or some good regional festivals like Hamptons and Woodstock are more fun to attend because they're more about audience response to the film, and you get to talk about it after the screening.''

A lot of deals are made at Sundance. ``They're not short on art. I've been going regularly since 1992, and it has become about a lot of other things than watching other people's films, and that's a shame,'' the director said. ``Beyond film school, festivals are one of the rare opportunities you have to meet your peers.''

Naiman used to manage a rock band on tour and particularly enjoys setting up the Indie Music Night, set for Saturday at Sagebrush Cantina.

She says one of her greatest challenges is putting together the puzzle of titles and showtimes, considering compatibility and contrast, and hoping not to leave moviegoers wrung out from too many heavy dramas.

``Good lord, you cross your fingers and hope you know your audience. It's really the hardest thing,'' said Naiman, who has worked festivals in Sonoma, Silver Lake, Philadelphia and Dubrovnik. ``It's like inviting people to a party and hoping they're all going to show up.''

Mounting a festival in L.A. presents its own issues. In the industry capital, there is no shortage of movie screenings of all sorts, and midsize festivals can be overshadowed by the Los Angeles Film Festival in June and the AFI Film Festival in the fall.

The key is to ``show them something they haven't seen, or that they know they can't see somewhere else,'' she said. ``And make it an experience they can be a part of rather than just another festival and a few movies that are going to come out in theaters anyway.

``It's something that, once you're there for the first day or so, you don't want to be away from it and you don't want it to end.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

SEVENTH ANNUAL METHOD FEST INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

Where: Edwards Cinemas, Commons at Calabasas, 4799 Commons Way, Calabasas; Louis B. Mayer Theater, Motion Picture and Television Fund, 23388 Mulholland Drive, Woodland Hills.

When: Friday through April 8.

Tickets: $75 weekend pass, $55 opening night, $45 centerpiece and closing nights, $4 to $8 single tickets. Call [phone] or go to www.ticketweb.com or www.methodfest.com.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) A METHOD to the madness 

... which is what Tiffany Naiman needed to put together local film festival

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer

(2) ``Steal Me,'' an independent film by Melissa Painter, will open the seventh annual Method Fest Independent Film Festival, which begins Friday.