As a campaigner, Carmel Budiardjo (obituary, 27 August) was a pioneer in using film to publicise the abuse of human rights. In London she produced Amnesty International’s first documentary film, More Than a Million Years, highlighting the ill-treatment of political prisoners in Indonesia. In the cutting room, with the editor Jane Wood, she was a stickler for clarity and accuracy.
In 1976, with Albert Finney as its narrator, the film won the jury prize at the Nyon documentary film festival in Switzerland. The jury’s citation praised the film “for exposing the conspiracy of silence which masks the drama of the Indonesian people”.
There was no internet or market for independent documentaries at the time, so the German section of Amnesty International distributed the film internationally to groups in Europe and North America, helping draw attention to human rights abuses worldwide.
