He succeeds John Cooper, who became the fest's director in March after Geoff Gilmore ankled the slot for the chief creative officer post with Tribeca Enterprises.

Groth had been a senior programmer, handling both narrative and documentary feature selection and leading the short film section. Sundance said that Groth will head the six-person programming team responsible for overseeing the festival's onscreen and offscreen events.

"Trevor possesses excellent taste in film and with it a keen eye for finding those rare diamonds in the rough," Cooper said. "He has long championed the offbeat and the experimental, but as a means of drawing in audiences, not alienating them."

Groth began working for the Sundance Institute's filmmaker labs and development program while still a student in film school at the U. of Utah. He joined the festival's programming staff in 1993 and was named senior programmer in 2003.

"Having started out as a volunteer at the festival when I was in high school to now being the director of programming has been an exhilarating journey," Groth said.