Robert Redford founded the festival in 1981

Movies shown at Sundance that have gone on to huge success include Sex, Lies and Videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Trainspotting and Memento.

The festival will also see the premi�re of a film by Pete Jones, the winner of a similar $1m competition, called Project Greenlight.

The process of making the movie was made into a TV show, charting the turbulent journey the filmmaking team took to complete a full-length picture for $1m.

Jones' film, Stolen Summer, has been backed by Miramax Films, among other sponsors.

The executive producers are Hollywood actors and writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Oscar winners for Good Will Hunting.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a huge hit

Such was the expense that Mr Jones had to plead with Miramax for an extra $1m in order to get the movie finished.

Project Greenlight attracted 7,000 entries, indicating that the number of budding filmmakers desperate to get their foot in studio door is showing no signs of diminishing.

Doug Scott, executive producer of the programme, said: "This is really about giving filmmakers a real opportunity and providing them with real resources, like casting directors and industry mentors, who bring them the production knowledge a new filmmaker may not have had."

Jones has had a rough introduction to the world of moviemaking, which was played out for television audiences.

Hell

He said the biggest discovery was how time-consuming and expensive the process was, as he and his team worked up to 20-hours days until it was wrapped.

Stolen Summer tells the story of a Catholic boy who is warned he is destined for hell if he does not change his ways and stars Aidan Quinn.

Since finishing the moving the 31-year-old has been working on another project, which Miramax has promised to look at.