On November 12, 1991, a young British-Swedish reporter, Max Stahl, stood near a crypt in the middle of Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery as the then occupying Indonesian army massacred 271 of the thousands of civilians who were chanting for freedom while praying for a student activist killed two weeks earlier.
Until then, East Timor was a forgotten war.
The country was sacrificed by Washington, London and Canberra who, wrapped up in a cold war syndrome, gave Jakarta the green light to invade when Portugal, the former colonial power, set sail. That was December 1975. At least 200,000 East Timorese - one-third of the population - paid with their lives for the 24-year-long occupation that ended in a last orgy of violence in 1999.
It is generally acknowledged that Stahl's irrefutable footage thrust East Timor into the public consciousness. Governments, as well as individuals, mobilised in a wave of outrage. In Dublin, Ireland, for example, then bus driver Tom Hyland was so shaken he devoted the next 10 years to the East Timorese cause. 'There was something poignant about the video. It was powerful, raw and direct,' the 55-year-old said in Dili, where he now lives.
Looking back, East Timor's president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jose Ramos-Horta, 58, also saw Santa Cruz as a turning point. 'It was neither the first nor the biggest massacre, but it was the only one that was documented. Max did us a great service by standing firm,' he said.
Talking over lunch in a noisy Dili restaurant, Stahl, now 53, smiles. Recognition pleases him, but there is no narcissism in his version of the events. 'I am a storyteller. I work very hard to tell the story,' he said.
'Back then, I didn't have evidence of what I believed was massive abuse going on. Santa Cruz gave me that evidence. I was very shaken and angry, but as a filmmaker you have to stay focused, stand firm and film.