The 2010 edition of the fest will take place Jan. 21-31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

"Programming an event as important to the cultural landscape as Sundance Film Festival, we feel a responsibility both to represent new creative developments in the field and to contextualize films for our festivalgoers," festival director John Cooper said. "Historically, we have done this quite successfully with documentary and, most recently, with New Frontier, 'saving space,' as it were, to support different trends in storytelling."

Cooper said he's invigorated by the "creative impatience" of such films.

"These are not just the films that have been labeled mumblecore ... or Dogma or even guerilla," he added. "They are an emerging counterculture within our counterculture."

Sundance said it has received more than 4,964 applications and 3,689 films for the 2010 festival.