Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My castaway this week is the filmmaker and criminologist Roger Grave.

Pioneering in his chosen subjects and style for the past 50 years, he has shone a spotlight on hitherto hidden areas of our society and greatly influenced

the entire genre of modern day documentary making.

Beyond that, his films on key institutions like the police have not just

helped change attitudes but policy too. A New Yorker and Harvard graduate, he first came

to Britain to study Shakespeare, His London debut as a theatre

director was a Tennessee Williams play. But he soon realized that the drama and

storylines of real life were where his heart and talents lay. He has since won a string of awards.

He says what I want on my gravestone is here lies Roger Grave. He made a difference.

And people are telling me that I have have but I don't think about it because there's so much left to do

So Roger Grief you still have so much to do and yet you have done so much already you You seem to me a very energetic character, sort of one of life's enthusiasts, if you will.

I am. I'm an optimist and I believe in the power of change for the better. I find this world getting more and more

complicated in so many situations that it's hard to keep one's optimism

intact if you look closely at what's going on. You know I have I suppose as a journalist and as criminologist I have what

Gramshi described as optimism of the heart and pessimism of the head. It is a brave person I think who says yes I make films to make a difference.

Where would you consider the biggest differences have been made and the many films you've made over the decades?

Well I've been told by the Policy Studies Institute that my film about how the police handle

rape was the most effective change of social policy ever with a documentary which I'm very

proud of but that was a long time ago.

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