Judi Dench, Ali Fazal get standing ovation from Toronto festival audience

After a successful screening at the Venice Film Festival, the cast and crew of Victoria & Abdul head to the Toronto International Film Festival for the North American premiere. The film was warmly received as is evidenced by the standing ovation the lead actors received.

After attending Victoria and Abdul world premiere with Richa Chadha, Ali Fazal heads for TIFF

The Hollywood Reporter magazine’s awards analyst Scott Feinberg, who was present at the screening, captured the response and wrote on Twitter, “Standing O for Dame Judi Dench ahead of VICTORIA & ABDUL.”

Fellow cast member, Eddie Izzard, who plays queen Victoria’s son, Bertie, moderated the question and answer session that followed the screening.

The film’s screening took place at the large Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto on 10 September. Earlier in the day, Ali Fazal took over the Instagram page of Yahoo Movies to promote the film and took viewers behind the scenes as he prepared for the premiere.

He also posed a short video introducing the author of the book, Victoria & Abdul, Shrabani Basu. Fazal jokingly said, “She’s the star, she’s the goddess who started the whole mess!”

Fazal and Dench (both matching in blue) later walked the red carpet together, posing for the media and signing autographs for the fans lined up outside the theatre.  

Ali Fazal: Judi Dench is like a 16-year-old girl

The film, directed by Stephen Frears, is due to be released in the UK on 15 September and in the US on 22 September.