KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 — Malaysian movie makers looking to make Islamic themed pictures could do worse than imitating Hollywood’s Jewish magnates by using a light handed approach,  award-winning local director Aziz M. Osman has suggested.

He claimed Hollywood blockbusters can be propagandist but are subtle enough so that they reel in viewers who would be otherwise turned off by overt religious values and messages.

“In Hollywood, in the West, we know that the studios are founded by Jews who went on an exodus there,” the Singapore-born maker of Malaysian war film “Leftenan Adnan” told a national seminar  on the entertainment industry and Islam.

He listed renowned Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures as examples.

“I have never heard of them making a dakwah (preaching) film. But if we watch all of their films, their dakyah (propaganda) is in the films. If not much, a little.

“It is because they know, if they make films to illustrate their religion, nobody will watch it,” Aziz said yesterday during a talk to discuss the obstacles faced by film producers in  making Islamic works.

To support his argument, the 52-year-old pointed to 2011 American thriller “The Grey”, which starred Liam Neeson and was co-produced by Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions.

According to Aziz, the film contained elements of spirituality, such as a scene in which Neeson’s character reaffirmed his faith by arranging a set of photographs in the shape of a Christian cross.

His views were echoed by Syed Shahridzan Syed Mohamed who heads a Shariah unit in a state-owned free-to-air broadcast network, which he asked not to be named.

“I want to correct a misconception about Islamic works. A drama does not necessarily need to have elements of hadith,” said Syed Shahridzan, referring to the collection of Prophet Muhammad’s sayings.

“We also accept programmes that have no tazkirah, as long as it does not stray from Islamic teachings,” he added, using the Arabic word for brief Islamic reminders.

Aziz and Shahridzan were both panellists at the two-day seminar organised by the Human Development and Investigation Bureau in the Malaysian Muslim Consumers’ Association that ended yesterday.

Aziz, the son of 1960s Malay pop singer M. Osman, won fame in Malaysia with his “Puteri Impian” romantic comedy film series, “XX Ray” sci-fi film series, and “Fantasi”, which was banned from screening in 1991 for allegedly containing superstitious elements, before it was rewritten and finally released in 1994.

His 2000 film “Leftenan Adnan” won a Special Jury Award in the Asia-Pacific Film Festival that same year, and the Best Film and Best Director awards in the Malaysian Film Festival in 2001.

He started in the business as a child actor.

In the same seminar on Saturday, a Kelantan state official had mooted an “entertainment secretariat” in each state Islamic agency to help Muslims understand the industry and to better spread the faith.