One of the most non-compromising and creative German filmmakers: Dominik Graf's memoirs.

Over the past four decades, Dominik Graf has worked with big stars such as Götz George, Matthias Brandt and Martina Gedeck, but also with a number of young talents on their way to great fame, often bringing out the best in them. In “Sein oder Spielen”, he now presents the both ruthlessly open and highly empathetic summary of his experiences as a director and film enthusiast.

As the first child of an actor and an actress, Dominik Graf had an intimate perspective on acting from an early age. For him, work and life, acting and reality were always inextricably intertwined: “a muddle”, as he himself writes. Graf's works such as “Die Katze”, “Im Angesicht des Verbrechens” and “Fabian” have set stylistic standards and have become beacons of German film history: fast-paced and excessively shot, but also with wonderful, lasting images, whether in tough police thrillers, romantic dramas or adaptations of historical material. A fast-paced artist's memoir and precise workshop report in one, in “To Be or to Play” Graf tells inimitably of an education of the heart in and with film that is still unfinished today. His book is not least a tribute to all the actors and actresses with whom he has worked.