Tuesday, 28 September 2010 23:01

1.00 pm - 3.00 pm on 25th October in the Allsebrooke Lecture Theatre, Bournemouth University
We are delighted to welcome Roger Graef, Chief Executive of Films of Record, an outstanding and highly successful British documentary film company which has now been operating for more than 30 years.  Roger, who is 74, was born in the USA and moved to the UK in 1962.  He is one of the leading documentary film-makers in the world.  Apart from making documentary film, he has also worked in professional theatre, in the arts, as a journalist and as a widely respected criminologist and advisor.  Download A4 poster/leaflet here.
Book your free place for this event through http://www.eventbrite.com/event/952672469 

Roger Graef is widely regarded as having broken the mould of British documentary film-making during the 1970s through the use of observational techniques with outstanding access to key institutions to create the most intimate films.  Working with his close colleague, the cameraman Charles Stewart, they established a form of filmmaking which became known as 'fly-on-the-wall'.  Landmark early series Roger produced and directed included THE SPACE BETWEEN WORDS (BBC 1972), DECISION (Granada Television 1978), also (with Mike Dibb) IS THIS THE WAY TO SAVE A CITY? which was instrumental in bringing about re-consideration of the development of Cardiff. 

Roger's work has often been found at the heart of debates around the processes of British institutions. In 1982, his series about the Thames Valley Police included a film entitled AN ALLEGATION OF RAPE which showed three policemen aggressively interviewing a woman who claimed she had been gang-raped, and the film revealed, perhaps for the first time, that the system was heavily weighted against the victim.  This film was widely regarded as being responsible for bringing about change in British police methods in dealing with rape victims.  The issue continues to be a hot topic. 

Roger has continued to produce films about issues around young offenders and prison but he has a much wider portfolio of film subjects.  His full list of credits as Director, Producer and Writer can be found here. The latest film he has produced (directed by Julien Temple), REQUIEM FOR DETROIT, has been nominated for a Grierson Award this year.    

Roger's campaigning work goes far beyond filmmaking.  He supports key charitable Trusts including the Koestler Trust for Art in Prisons, RAPT, the Rehabilitation of 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 Visiting Fellow of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics and Advisor to the UK Sentencing Council.

He was a founding board member of Channel 4 and, in 2000 he was News International Visiting Professor of Media and Communications at Oxford University.  In 2004 Roger was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship and he was awarded an OBE in the 2006 New Year's Honours list for services to film-making and broadcasting.