Roger Graef - Career in Britain

Career in Britain

He moved to Britain in 1962 and directed Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment at the Royal Court and Wyndham's Theatre in the West End of London.

His first film was One of them is Brett for the Society of Thalidomide Children, to demonstrate to head teachers of primary schools that the physical handicaps of the children did not stop them from being active mentally. It won the Silver Dragon at Cracow, and was shown on the BBC, CBC and ABC Scope in the US. It entered medical school curricula as well.

His film The Life and Times of John Huston, Esq for the BBC, CBC and NET in the US, was one of the very first documentary co-productions for television. He subsequently produced the 13-part series Who Is on artists, architects, writers, and composers for BBC, CBC, NET and Bayerischer Rundfunk, directing the episodes on Jacques Lipchitz, Pierre Boulez, Walter Gropius and Maurice Bejart himself.

His film Why Save Florence? (BBC/BR/NET) in 1968 revealed the scandalous state of the city's defences against flooding.

His 1970 film In the Name of Allah: the life cycle of a Muslim community (Fes, Morocco) for BBC/BR/NET was the first long documentary on Islam shown in the West.

Working with his collaborator cameraman Charles Stewart, he made the first 'fly-on-the wall' purely observational series The Space between Words in 1972 for the BBC and PBS, including Politics, the first film inside the US Senate, and Diplomacy, the first unstaged film inside the UN.

He then made a series of ground breaking access films for Granada Television. Working with Norma Percy and Brian Lapping, he made the first film inside the UK Government: State of the Nation: A Law in the Making, and in 1976 the first film inside the EU: Inside the Brussels HQ. His three part series Decision followed top level decision making inside Occidental Petroleum, Hammersmith Council and British Steel. The steel film was adapted as a short course by Harvard and London Business Schools.

His 1978 series Decision; British Communism followed the evolution of a manifesto over several years. It won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Current Affairs Documentary.

In 1973 he became a member of the board of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, and created and chaired its Architectural Forum. He also became a part-time tutor at the Architectural Association. In 1975 he was appointed to the Development Control Review of Planning Law, chaired by George Dobry QC and chaired the Sub-Group on Public Involvement in Planning. He promoted the early publication of planning officers' recommendations for approval or refusal of applications before the meeting which is now standard practice. He was also on the three-man Inquiry into Control of Demolition. In 1976 he was made a member of the board of London Transport. He subsequently co-designed the London Bus Map with Andrew Holmes. His BBC film, Is this the Way to Save a City? co-directed by Mike Dibb for Omnibus, delayed the redevelopment of Cardiff. Together with Simon Jenkins, he made a film for Arena showing that a Grade II listed building was demolished every day during Save Britain's Heritage Year.

1982 he made a ground-breaking observational documentary titled Police about the Thames Valley Police. The reaction to the programme's portrayal of insensitive police handling of a rape victim changed the way in which the UK police handled rape cases. He directed the films/TV specials of the first three Amnesty International comedy galas in 1976, 1977 and 1979 - the last of which was the first Secret Policeman's Ball film. In 1984 he co-produced the first Comic Relief with Richard Curtis, and Look at the State We're In (BBC), a series of short satirical films on constitutional reform, with John Cleese, Hugh Laurie, Dawn French, Anthony Sher.

Graef became a UK citizen in 1995. He was a trustee and then a patron of the Koestler Trust for art in prisons, the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust, the Irene Taylor Trust for Music in Prisons, the Voice of the Child in Care, Who Cares? Trust and Prisoners Abroad, a charity which supports Britons imprisoned outside the UK. He is a patron of the Mulberry Bush School in Oxfordshire, the subject of Kim Longinotto's Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go for Films of Record.

As a criminologist, he has made more than thirty films on police and criminal justice issues, including Police, Operation Carter, In Search of Law and Order UK (Channel 4)and In Search of Law and Order - USA (pbs and Channel 4) on positive ways to address youth offending, which influenced the National Youth Justice Board. Police 2001 (BBC) looked at how policing had changed since his 1982 series, Panorama: Rape on Trial looked at how much had changed in the handling of rape since his 1982 film. His 1987 fiction film Closing Ranks (ITV/Zenith) about domestic violence in the police was used in training for many years. Since 1995 he has been a Visiting Fellow of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics. He is an advisor to the England and Wales Sentencing Council.

He has written Talking Blues: Police In Their Own Words (Harper Collins), Living Dangerously: young offenders in their own words (Harvill) and Why Restorative Justice? (Gulbenkian).

He broadcasts regularly on Radio 4 and 5 and writes for the Sunday Times, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, the Observer and the Guardian.

Graef was a founding board member of Channel Four. He was News International Visiting Professor of Media and Communications at Oxford University. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Media Standards Trust.