Personal reflections

Writing this screenplay for The Ogress of Fez is turning out to be a tougher challenge than I first thought. Every day, I'm faced with the task of dialling back the drama to find the real story beneath the events - to do justice to the very real, complicated people who lived through them.

Set in 1930s Morocco, the backdrop is a French-controlled colonial brothel, a place manufactured as a space both of control and of escape. Here, I'm trying to paint a picture of life inside this world through the eyes of Oum El Hassen, a figure whose actions have been sensationalised in history books. She's a madame, a figure of power, but also a woman caught in the complexities of her own decisions and identity.

Today, I wrote a scene where Oum quietly watches her world from the shadows of the brothel. It's these moments I'm drawn to; small, quiet moments that speak to her isolation and ambition. As an Algerian in Morocco, she navigated the nuances of being neither fully one nor the other, under a French regime that saw her as neither. As well as being about her crimes, the screenplay is an attempt to understand her as a person who lived through extraordinary times.

The freedom of not adhering strictly to historical facts is a relief. This isn't a documentary; it's a drama inspired by real events and real emotions. That gives me space to explore, to imagine, and to create a version of Oum that speaks to broader truths about power, identity, and survival.

Sometimes, I worry about getting it wrong, about straying too far from the truth or, conversely, not far enough. How do I honour the real women of Bousbir without exploiting their stories? How do I show Oum's cruelty without losing sight of her humanity? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

But there's a scene I keep coming back to, one where Oum and one of her girls share a rare, honest conversation. It’s not based on any record, but imagined from what I've learned about the world they inhabited. It's scenes like this that I hope will bring nuance and depth to the film, and maybe even offer a new way to view the past.

This project is my chance to step beyond the sensational, to find the human core of a story that's been told many times, in many ways. It’s daunting, but it’s also a chance to really dive into the creative depths of what filmmaking can be, more than just retelling, but reimagining.