In 1968 he made a film called "Why Save Florence?" (BBC/BR/NET), about the poor state of the city's defences against flooding. 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. 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 US Senate, and "Diplomacy", the first unstaged film inside the United Nations.