26 Facts About Roger Graef

Roger Arthur Graef OBE was an American-born British documentary filmmaker and theatre director.

Roger Graef directed 24 plays in theatres along the East Coast, and was chosen by CBS for its new TV drama directors' program.

Roger Graef directed two network dramas for CBS, including The Seven who were Hanged, a one-hour special adapted and produced by Robert Herridge from the Leonid Andreyev novel of the same name.

Roger Graef 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.

Roger Graef commented in a BBC interview in 2014 that "nobody had ever seen them as people, they had only seen them as cases and it entered medical school curricula immediately because doctors had never seen them at home".

Roger Graef 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.

Roger Graef then made a series of films for Granada Television with unprecedented access to various institutions.

In 1973, Roger Graef became a member of the board of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and founded and chaired its Architectural Forum.

Roger Graef became a part-time tutor at the Architectural Association.

Roger Graef promoted the early publication of planning officers' recommendations for approval or refusal of applications before the meeting, which is standard practice.

Roger Graef was on the three-man Inquiry into Control of Demolition.

Roger Graef subsequently co-designed the London Bus Map with Andrew Holmes.

In 1982, Roger Graef made an observational documentary titled Police about the Thames Valley Police.

Roger Graef was 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.

Roger Graef was a patron of the charity Compassion In Care, which campaigns on abuse of the elderly.

Roger Graef has made many films on race and policing, including Murder Blues, three films following Operation Trident on black-on-black gun crime for the BBC.

Roger Graef made Searching for Madeleine on the mistakes of the original investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal.

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

Roger Graef was a patron of Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports the welfare of Britons imprisoned overseas and their families, as well as the Irene Taylor Trust for Music in Prisons.

Roger Graef joined the charity board of Complicite theatre company in 1997.

Roger Graef became the chair of the board and remained a trustee of the organisation until his death in 2022.

In 1979, Roger Graef founded Films of Record, a documentary production company that specialises in tackling difficult subjects, and securing access to previously closed institutions.

Roger Graef was working as Executive Producer with Rogan Productions and 72films on a number of projects in development and production.

Roger Graef died from cancer on 2 March 2022, at the age of 85.

In 2004 Roger Graef was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement, the first documentary maker to receive this status.

Roger Graef was appointed an OBE in the 2006 New Year Honours list for services to film-making and broadcasting.