Joel Grey Presents Human Rights Campaign Award to THE IMITATION GAME

Deadline reports that the Oscar nominated film THE IMITATION GAME was the recipient of the Ally for Equality Award from Human Rights Campaign. The award recognizes LGBT-related accomplishments. Past winners include Jennifer Lopez and Whoopi Goldberg.

Receiving the prize at yesterday's ceremony held at New York's Waldorf Astoria were the film's producer Harvey Weinstein, director Morten Tyldum, actor Matthew Goode and producers Nora Grossman and Ido Ostrowsky.

Tony Award winer Joel Grey, who presented the honor, read a passage from Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart. "Did you know that it was an openly gay Englishman who was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing...why don't they teach any of this in the schools." The actor went on to add, "We have come a long way but we must never forget out past, or our heroes. Today, Turing's vital story is finally being told."

The film, which recently received eight Oscar nominations including best picture, stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard.

In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Alan Turing, a genius British mathematician, logician, cryptologist and computer scientist who cracked the German Enigma Code that helped the Allies win WWII. He went on to help with the development of computers at the University of Manchester following the war, but was prosecuted by the UK government in 1952 for homosexual acts which the country deemed illegal.