Robert Redford's Sundance comes to London

This indie film festival spin-off arrives April 2012

Robert Redford confirmed yesterday that he will bring a mini-version of the Sundance Film Festival, his annual celebration of independent film in Park City, Utah, to London's O2 next April.

Details are scarce, but we're told that 'Sundance London 2012' will be a four day event, running from April 26 to 29 2012. Redford remains modest about his ambitions while also hoping the new event will become an annual fixture on the capital's film calendar.

'We're coming in very small,' he explains. 'We're here four days, we're not bringing the full complement of Sundance – we're bringing film and American music.'

It will be interesting to see how this sideshow to Redford's annual January event will sit with the existing Edinburgh International Film Festival and London Film Festival. Programmers from both festivals have previously relied on Sundance to find interesting, niche American titles to which they can offer European or British premieres.

Last year, Edinburgh gave Debra Granik's 'Winter's Bone' its British premiere, while London did the same for Derek Cianfrance's 'Blue Valentine'. Both had their world premieres at Sundance in Utah and must surely be the sort of titles Redford now hopes to carry across the Atlantic himself.

One imagines the new Sundance will be a particular blow to Edinburgh, which currently takes place only two months later, in June, and already is suffering from severe budget cuts and a radical reduction in size and status. This year, Edinburgh plans to show only 40 to 50 films compared to more than 130 in 2010. A vigorous debate is already underway about whether to move Edinburgh back to the August date it occupied until 2007, when festival bosses decided to rebrand Edinburgh as 'the Sundance of Europe'. Now Europe has its own Sundance proper, Edinburgh will have more rethinking to do.

The six months between Sundance London and the London Film Festival should give programmers of the latter enough time and space to remain distinctive, although London Film Festival programmers will probably be hoping that Redford's ambitions remain as limited as he suggests.

We'll publish more details on Sundance London when we have them.

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