Actor Kamal Haasan has sought funds from the Centre and the State for restoring and archiving old films in digital format.

Talking to journalists at the valedictory session of the Media and Entertainment Business Conclave (MEBC) organized by FICCI in Chennai, Kamal, who is Chairman, FICCI MEBC, spoke of the conversion of old films contained in negative film format to digital format by Real Images free of cost.

The digital library was set up by FICCI and has around 3,500 films in all Indian languages. About 1,000 gigabytes of storage space has been created in the last six months. "We have done this with private funds but to enhance the capacity, we need government funds," he said.

Batting for the importance of preserving old films in the coming years, he said restoring and converting the films into digitized format involved a huge cost and so the Central and State Governments should come forward to support this project.

When asked about the steps taken to get industry status for the film business, he replied that it is already an industry.F