About Roger Graef
Roger Arthur Graef OBE was an American-born British documentary filmmaker and theatre director. Born in New York City, he moved to Britain in 1962, where he began a career producing documentary films investigating previously closed institutions, including Government ministries and court buildings. His 1970 film In the Name of Allah: the life cycle of a Muslim community (filmed in Fez, Morocco) for BBC/BR/NET was the first long documentary on Islam shown in the West. Graef's film The Life and Times of John Huston, Esq for the BBC, CBC, and NET in the US, was one of the first documentary co-productions for television. It won the Silver Dragon Prize in Kraków, Poland, and was broadcast by the BBC, CBC, and ABC Scope in the U.S., as well as being added to medical school curricula. Working with his collaborator cameraman Charles Stewart, Graef 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 documentary filmed inside the U.S.
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