Premiere to take place at Odeon Leicester Square on Oct 21, with Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Mike Newell expected to attend the festival.

Mike Newell’s Great Expectations is to receive its European premiere as the closing film of the 56th BFI London Film Festival.

Newell’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel, adapted for the screen by David Nicholls, stars Jeremy Irvine as Pip with Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane and Sally Hawkins also among the cast. The premiere will take place at the Odeon Leicester Square on Oct 21.

Carter, Fiennes and Newell are all expected to attend the festival.

On her first closing night choice as festival director, Clare Stewart, BFI Head of Exhibition, commented: “Visually ravishing and rippling with immediacy, this new adaptation of the classic novel, directed by Mike Newell provides a fitting conclusion to both the 56th BFI London Film Festival and London’s bicentenary celebrations of the life and work of Charles Dickens.”

“It’s a great honour to be invited to be the BFI London Film Festival’s Closing Night film,” Newell added. “I’ve tried to make a film that is true to the theatrical vividness, energetic characters and high colour that he is loved for, while mining the deep seams of emotional cruelty and madness that underlie one of Dickens’ darkest-shadowed stories.”

Lionsgate will release Great Expectations in the UK on Nov 30.

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