Salt Lake City native Trevor Groth, a veteran programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, is now the programming director of the event.

The Sundance Institute announced Cooper's promotion this week; the change becomes effective immediately.

Groth replaces John Cooper, who succeeded Geoffrey Gilmore as the festival director in March. (Gilmore, the director of the festival for much of its 25 years, resigned his position in February to join New York-based Tribeca Enterprises as chief operating officer.)

Groth worked for the Sundance Institute while attending the University of Utah and joined the festival's programming staff full time in 1993. He was promoted to senior programmer in 2003, handling both narrative and documentary feature selection and leading the Festival's Short Film Section. As programming director, Groth now heads the six-person programming team that is responsible for selecting film works for the Sundance's on-screen and off-screen events. Groth called the journey "exhilarating."

"I have had a bird's-eye view of the rise of the American independent film movement over the last 20 years that Sundance played a key role in supporting," he said.

He also praised his fellow programmers, who include veterans Caroline Libresco, David Courier, Shari Frilot and John Nein, and the shorts programming team (Jon Korn, Todd Luoto, Shane Smith, Hebe Tabachnik and Kimberly Yutani).

"It is a terrific privilege to work alongside such an amazing group of people as well as discovering innovative filmmakers and connecting them with audiences," Groth said. "I look forward to continuing both of these and to unearthing new trends in film, video and beyond."

Groth's bosses praised the move as well. Cooper summed up Groth's personality as being "wildly creative yet unassuming and completely affable."

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

Films Groth helped foster at Sundance include "Hard Eight" (1996), "Pi" (1998), "Memento" (2000) and "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004), as well as shorter works by Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich") and Peter Sollett ("Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist") and others.

And since 2002 Groth has served as the artistic director for the CineVegas Film Festival, as well as serving a guest curator for the Australian Film Institute, as a festival juror (for the South by Southwest Festival) and as a consultant on a number of film productions.

Groth's first official festival as programming director will be the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, which will be held Jan. 21-31.

E-mail: jeff@desnews.com