A new Netflix documentary, Hating Peter Tatchell, chronicling the activist’s 54 years of LGBTQ+ and other human rights campaigning, is out Thursday May 20.

Executive producers Elton John and David Furnish described Hating Peter Tatchell as the powerful and inspiring true story of a controversial human rights campaigner whose provocative acts of civil disobedience rocked the establishment, revolutionised attitudes to homosexuality and exposed tyrants in the fight for equality.

The documentary follows Tatchell as he embarks on his bid to protest at the FIFA World Cup in Moscow 2018, in an act meant to draw attention to the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Russia and Chechnya.

Tatchell’s campaign record includes 3,000 non-violent protests, 100 arrests, 300 violent assaults, 50 attacks on his apartment, numerous plots to kill him and thousands of death threats. 

This documentary gives an intimate perspective on Tatchell’s life as a campaigner, through rare archive footage and one-to-one conversations. It includes an intimate conversation between Tatchell and Ian McKellen alongside evocative interviews with the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, actor Stephen Fry, the ex-head of Stonewall Angela Mason, 1970’s pop sensation Tom Robinson, former MP and Cabinet minister Chris Smith and photo journalist Adrian Arbib, who reported on some of Peter’s best known protests. 

Describing his inspiration for the documentary, director Christopher Amos says, “In 1999, I first met activist Peter Tatchell soon after arriving in London from Australia. I was drawn to his dedication to campaigning for human rights over such a sustained period, 30-plus years already at the time.

“Yet, despite his considerable efforts fighting for equality, Peter was facing severe criticism, even from within the LGBT+ community. Shockingly this included hate mail and death threats. Throughout the time I have known Peter he went from being a public figure who the media and critics loved to hate, to a beloved national treasure – this fascinated me. 

“Over the past two decades, I have come to appreciate first-hand Peter’s eccentricities, his meticulous organisation, and witnessed his arsenal of direct action tactics defending human rights.”

You can check out the film from tomorrow on Netflix.