30WEST Hires Sundance Director Of Programming Trevor Groth
January 29, 2018
30WEST Hires Sundance Director Of Programming Trevor Groth
As the Sundance Film Festival comes to a close, 30WEST announced today that they have hired Director of Programming for the Park City-based fest, Trevor Groth. He will join the company in February.
Related
Sundance VR Documentary 'Zikr: A Sufi Revival' Acquired By Dogwoof
Groth has been with Sundance since 1993 and was named Senior Programmer in 2003 before being upped to Director in 2009. During his time at Sundance, he pushed and championed project that would later go on to be acclaimed films including Whiplash, Fruitvale Station, Hard Eight, Pi, Memento, and Napoleon Dynamite. While there, he served as the head programmer for the Festival’s Short Film Section He as among the first to showcase the shorts of filmmakers who would go on to be notable marquee names in the industry including Spike Jonze, Cary Fukunaga, Taika Waititi and Sarah Polley.
“For over twenty years Trevor has been one of the film community’s most consistent champions of original creative voices, all while exhibiting a fearless commitment to pushing the boundaries of film creation and distribution,” said 30WEST in a statement. “We could not be more thrilled that he has chosen to join us.”
“It’s been a wild and exhilarating ride being in the driver’s seat of a festival that has launched many of our generation’s greatest independent films and filmmakers,” said Groth. “I look forward to continuing that dynamic journey with a company equally committed to discovering what’s next.
Groth worked for the Sundance Institute’s filmmaker labs and development program while still a student in film school at the University of Utah. Since 2002, he has also served as Artistic Director for The CineVegas Film Festival and been a guest curator for the Australian Film Institute, and a juror at festivals including Cannes Critics’ Week, SXSW, Morelia and more. He has also served as a consultant on a number of film productions and was instrumental in the creation of Sundance Film Festival London, Sundance Film Festival Hong Kong and Sundance NEXT Fest.
Just last week at Sundance, 30WEST made some major moves. They purchased the film studio, NEON which they partnered with to release the awards season favorite, I, Tonya. 30WEST also partnered with Bleecker Street to buy the U.S. rights to Wash Westmoreland’s Colette starring Keira Knightley and arranged the partnership between NEON and AGBO Films to buy Assassination Nation, directed by Sam Levinson.
30WEST has an impressive slate ahead of them. They are currently in production on two feature films, Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman as well as Peter Hedges’ Ben Is Back with Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges. This spring, 30WEST will release the film Beast with Roadside Attractions, which premiered to acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival and most recently enjoyed its US premiere at Sundance.