‘Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing’ looks at how far gay rights have come in the UK

After decades of attempts to reform archaic laws that criminalized male homosexual acts as “gross indecency” – and to expunge the records of many convicted men – a new bill was finally passed in British Parliament. Narrated by Ben Whishaw, Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing tells the story of that long struggle.

A wave of post-WWII prosecutions compromised thousands of men, including the brilliant World War II computer pioneer and code-breaker Alan Turing. In 1967, a new “Sexual Offenses Act” partly decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in England and Wales, but was not fully enacted until 2003, when the homophobic law was finally repealed. Full, unequivocal pardons for those convicted under the old law were still awaited.

In this riveting and informative documentary from director Rosemarie Reed, six different men tell individual stories of how Britain’s anti-gay laws impacted their lives while also examining the much-deserved Royal Pardon that was posthumously given to Alan Turing in 2013.

Watch the trailer for Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing below. The documentary is now available on Dekkoo.