Actor Kamal Haasan's "Mumbai Express", due for release in Tamil and Hindi April 14, will be the first south Indian film to be censored digitally.

"I'm not sure if this is the first Indian film to be censored in this manner. There might be someone in Mumbai who has done it earlier. But this must be the first film from the south to be censored like this," Kamal Hassan said at a film function here Tuesday.

The actor thanked Central Board of Film Certification chairperson Sharmila Tagore and the information and broadcasting ministry for agreeing to censor the film in digital format.

Kamal dismissed speculation about whether the censors would fear misuse of the certificate given to a digital film, saying even regular film prints that are certified by the censors could be misused.

Shooting in a digital format enables the saving of film rolls in a big way. In the case of "Mumbai Express", over Rs.10 million was saved in just film rolls.

However, Kamal said the saving would only be in the case of big budget films. For smaller films, there might not be much of a cost difference.

The name of Kamal's character in the film is Mumbai Express and its publicity material describes him as the "Engine".