Two university colleagues picked up the Bafta for best documentary for their piece on genocide in Indonesia in the 1960s.

Dr Joshua Oppenheimer, from the University of Westminster, directed The Act of Killing with his colleague Professor Joram ten Brink, who produced the piece.

The documentary, which has already won 40 international film prizes, hopes to repeat its success at the Oscars in two week’s time.

Mr Brink, who teaches film at the university which has campuses in Marylebone, said: “This award comes at the end of a five-year research project at the University of Westminster, supported by the Arts and Humanities Council, in which we tried to develop an innovative form of filmmaking, but more importantly, to shed light on an unknown genocide in Indonesia 50 years ago.

Professor Joram ten Brink, lecturer at the University of Westminster

“The success of the film in the UK over the last year, culminating with the Bafta award win, is testament to the work in moving image research undertaken at the University of Westminster.”

The Act of Killing, originally released in 2012, focuses on gangster Anwar Congo and a group of unrepentant former members of the Indonesian death squads who between them killed more than 500,000 people from 1965-66.

The university has strong links with the film industry. Former student and film director Asif Kapadia won two Baftas for Senna in 2012.

The institute is currently working on the restoration of the historic Regent Street Cinema, which hosted the Lumiere brothers’ first moving picture show in 1896.