Curious Film’s GM and EP Peter Grasse set to join AdFest speaker line-up on Friday, Mar 7th

Curious Film’s general manager and executive producer Peter Grasse will join this year’s AdFest 2014 line up of speakers on Friday 7th March (Day Two of AdFest 2014) at 4:30pm.

Grasse will hold a session entitled The Dividends of Diversification that explores how companies that diversify beyond their traditional business model revitalise their creativity and maintain their market relevance.

Says Grasse: “Most businesses fail to improve upon what they are perceived to be capable of. Resulting in a loss of creative growth and their subsequent marginalisation as an easily substituted service provider.

“On the other hand, successful creative businesses repeatedly demonstrate the courage to diversify beyond their core competencies in new and interesting ways; resulting in a revitalisation of their perceived creativity and a re-calculation of their talent and expertise.”

In four years, Curious successfully outpaced redundancy by tactically diversifying its core business from commercial production to theatrical distribution and beyond. Grasse’s presentation not only explains how Curious retained market relevance, but amusingly reveals the creative lessons encountered along the way.

Born in Pennsylvania, Grasse has helped to shape Curious Film into a groundbreaking production company. In 2010, Curious produced two Cannes Grands Prix award-winning campaigns and launched its film distribution company across Australasia.

The company’s films have won the Semaine de la Critique Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival; were selected for the Official Competition of the Palme D’or at Cannes in 2012; as well as being selected to screen at Venice and Sundance.

In 2013 Curious was awarded Asia-Pacific Production Company of the Year at the Ciclope Craft Awards in Berlin and added Singapore to its production syndicate in both Australia and New Zealand.