PETALING JAYA, March 14 — Ahmad Idham Nazri has asked the public to hit the pause button on their criticisms as he is only just starting to get to work.

The newly-minted chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) told Astro Awani that it was too soon for critics to begin passing judgment on him.

"Be patient, I haven’t even started work yet. I only arrived at the office today,” he was quoted as saying.

At the same time, he admitted that everyone was free to doubt his appointment as the new CEO.

Online reactions to the 45-year-old taking over Finas were mostly negative with many seeing his poor performance in the local film industry as a bad omen for the agency.

The director’s 2017 flick Pencuri Hati Mr Cinderella raked in a meagre RM18,865 at the box office with Ahmad Idham even lashing out at critics of his work.

However, the Finas CEO urged people to put the debacle aside when evaluating him in his new position.

"Don’t judge me based on the films I’ve made in the past because there were conflicts between business and the direction the industry was heading in,” he told Astro Awani.

Ahmad Idham has been in the film industry for more than 25 years and hopes to repair Finas’ public reputation during his two-year tenure as its CEO which came into effect on March 11.

Finas was put under the microscope of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) last year after RM25 million was suspected of being embezzled from the agency.

"The most important thing is to erase negative perceptions and negative views on Finas, like Finas can’t do this or do that,” he told Astro Awani.

He was also confident that Finas could work hand-in-hand with local filmmakers to rejuvenate the Malay film industry.