30West has hired Sundance Film Festival programming chief Trevor Groth, who will join the company in February, it was announced Monday.
Groth joined the festival in 1993 and was named Senior Programmer in 2003 and Director in 2009. During his time with the festival staff, he helped champion acclaimed titles such as “Whiplash,” “Fruitvale Station,” “Hard Eight,” “Pi,” “Memento” and “Napoleon Dynamite.”
In his post, he also was one of the first to showcase the shorts of now prominent filmmakers such as Spike Jonze, Cary Fukunaga, Taika Waititi and Sarah Polley.
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“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.”
30West added, “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. We could not be more thrilled that he has chosen to join us.”
Since 2002, Groth has also served as Artistic Director for The CineVegas Film Festival and has been a guest curator for the Australian Film Institute. He has also been a juror at festivals including Cannes Critics’ Week, SXSW, Morelia and more. He’s also served as a consultant on a number of film productions.
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John Cooper, director of Sundance Film Festival, said in a statement, “I’m both proud and saddened to share that our friend Trevor Groth has decided to leave Sundance to pursue a new opportunity working at investment and advisory business 30WEST. The skills he honed through curating over two decades of movies for our Festivals has made him uniquely qualified for this work.”
Last week, 30West acquired Neon, and 30West partnered with Bleecker Street to acquire Keira Knightley’s “Colette,” and teamed up with AGBO Films to buy “Assassination Nation.”
The company is currently in production on two films, Karyn Kusama’s “Destroyer” starring Nicole Kidman, and Peter Hedges’ “Ben Is Back” starring Julia Roberts. This spring, 30West will release “Beast” with Roadside Attractions, which just had its U.S. premiere at Sundance.
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