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New Montreal FilmFest Program Director Moritz de Hadeln announces that Pride and Prejudice, the acclaimed new film version of Jane Austen's classic novel, will close the Festival’s inaugural edition. Directed by Joe Wright, Pride and Prejudice replaces the previously announced Domino, which was withdrawn for technical reasons.

The story of five sisters who find their world turned upside down with the arrival in their village of a wealthy young man and his best friend, Pride and Prejudice stars Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFayden, Benda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Judi Dench and Kelly Reilly (who also starred in the NMFF's opening film, Cédric Klapisch's Russian Dolls).
Unlike other Austen works which have received numerous big-screen adaptations, the only previous version destined for the cinema was MGM's 1940 feature starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier.
Praised by Variety's Derek Elley, at its recent premiere, as "a movie for the age, and a keeper for the ages", the new version directed by Joe Wright was filmed in a variety of period settings around England from a script penned by Wright and Deborah Moggach. Wright, who has directed several mini-series for
British television, including the lavish and well-received BBC production Charles II: The Last King (2003), is making his theatrical feature debut with Pride and Prejudice.