Kamal stresses need to digitize old films, combat piracy

Actor Kamal Haasan has stressed the urgent need for restoring and archiving old films in digital format and sought financial support for this project from the State and Union Governments.

He was talking to mediapersons after the concluding session of the Media and Entertainment Business conclave (MEBC) organized by FICCI in Chennai on Dec.2. He is chairman of MEBC FICCI.

Kamal said that 3,500 old films of different languages have been digitized and preserved in one petabyte memory capacity by Real Images over the last five years. The company has done this free of cost.

Emphasising the importance of preserving old films for posterity, he said restoring and converting the films into digitized format entail a huge cost and so the State and Union Governments should come forward to support this project.

Heading a panel discussion the previous day, Kamal said Chennai has emerged as one of the costliest places to make films due to the sheer number of technicians in the City. To bring down the production cost, he suggested that the technicians and other staff in the industry be given training. Efforts are being made to impart specialized skill sets and produce properly trained technicians.

Kamal also called for concerted efforts to beat piracy and warned that the illegal money earned through piracy could be going to fund international terrorist activity. 'Don't buy pirated movies not just for the sake of the survival of the film industry, but for the sake of your country,' he appealed.