The first murder
From Colour Me (dir. Martin de Thurah)
As part of the DFI Feature Screenwriting Lab, my mentor Raja Amari suggested I explore the first murder. It’s not a scene that will appear in The Ogress of Fez, but it sits beneath the story like sediment. In the historical case, Oum had denied culpability. Charifa’s body was found dismembered, packed into a hamper, masked with herbs to hide the stench. There’s mystery and misdirection in the trial records. Writing this fictionalised version of the first murder became a way of entering the silence.
The girl stood defiantly in front of Oum, her eyes blazing with fury. The small, dimly lit room seemed to shrink as the tension thickened between them. Oum, rigid with disbelief, had never encountered such insolence. She had dealt with unruly girls before, but never like this - never with such brazen defiance. Hamid stood nearby, silent, his face a blank mask.
“Do you think you’re better than us?” the girl sneered, her voice dripping with contempt. Oum felt the sting of the words cut deep, a flash of anger rising in her chest. She slapped the girl across the face, the sound echoing sharply against the walls.
“Not another word,” Oum commanded, her voice low and threatening. But the girl laughed - a bitter, mocking sound that reverberated through the room. She raised her chin, eyes gleaming with defiance.
“You’re nothing, Oum. Just a coward. Hiding behind your power, but deep down, you’re…”
Oum’s hand flew again, this time harder. The girl’s head snapped to the side, but she recovered, her eyes narrowing. Before she could speak again, Oum lunged at her, the fury erupting from deep inside, uncontrollable, volcanic. She grabbed the nearest object - a brass candlestick, heavy and solid - and swung it at the girl with all her strength.
The first blow landed with a sickening thud. The girl staggered, a gash opening on her forehead, blood spilling down her face. Oum stood frozen for a moment, her heart pounding in her ears, breath ragged. The room felt too small, too close, her vision narrowing to the girl’s bloodied face.
Hamid stepped forward, grabbing Oum’s arm, trying to pull her back. For a brief second, everything stopped. Oum and Hamid both stood there, panting, eyes locked. The girl, clutching her head, leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. Then she spat, blood and saliva mixing as it hit the floor.
“You’re weak,” the girl hissed. “Just like-”
Before she could finish, Hamid struck her with a thunderous slap, the sound louder than before. The girl’s body crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll.
A beat passed. Silence. Oum’s heart raced in her chest, her hands shaking violently. The room felt surreal, as if time had warped and stretched in front of her. She could hear Hamid breathing heavily beside her, his hand still raised. Slowly, the girl began to stir, groaning softly as her eyes fluttered open.
Suddenly, she screamed.
Hamid moved fast, straddling her, one hand clamping over her mouth, the other pinning her arms down. Oum stood over them, watching in silence as the girl’s muffled cries filled the room. Hamid’s face twisted in frustration, his grip tightening.
“Harder,” Oum whispered, her voice barely audible, but Hamid heard it. His hands moved with renewed force, striking the girl’s head repeatedly, her muffled screams growing weaker with each blow.
“Harder,” Oum repeated, louder this time, her voice trembling with something she couldn’t quite understand - power, fear, rage. She couldn’t tell anymore. All she knew was that it needed to end.
With a final, crushing blow, Hamid silenced the girl forever. Her body went still, her head lolling to the side. The room fell quiet, the kind of silence that swallows everything whole. Hamid, breathing hard, slowly pulled away, looking down at his hands, then turning them over, back and front, as if checking for some kind of stain.
Oum stood frozen, her eyes distant, her body trembling. She couldn’t stop shaking, her breath shallow, heart racing uncontrollably. Minutes passed, though they felt like hours, and still, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
Finally, in a voice hoarse and broken, Oum said, “Get rid of it.”
Hamid glanced at her, expressionless, and nodded. He bent down, scooping the lifeless body into his arms. Oum watched as he carried it away, disappearing into the shadows of the riad.
When I sat down to write this, I wasn’t looking for a confession, or even a revelation. I wanted pressure, I wanted something to split. Oum’s power, in the official narrative, is often read through fear, charisma, coldness. But what was its origin? I imagined a moment that wasn’t planned, but irreversible. Something feral, reactive, messy.
The logic was: what if Oum’s descent into violence wasn’t premeditated, but eruptive? What if she didn’t kill out of strategy or sadism, but shame, a flash of humiliation she couldn’t bear? The girl’s words were the match; the silence that followed was the fire.
Hamid’s role unsettles me even now. He’s both tool and master. His compliance is almost ritualistic, there’s something sickeningly intimate about how he watches her, waits for her command. And when Oum whispers “harder,” I knew I’d found the moment that terrified me most; not the act itself, but the instruction she uttered under her breath. That line blurred something in me, too: is she testing her power, or simply dissociating from it?
And yet, it still matters to me that she doesn’t strike the final blow. That ambiguity is the space where denial can grow. Where history can become clouded. This may be the scene she forgets. Or rewrites. Or never admits. That’s why it won’t be in the film, but it haunts the film.
This isn’t an origin story. I don’t believe in clean arcs. But if The Ogress of Fez is a house built from fragments, this is one of the stones buried under the floorboards. It holds weight. And when she walks across it, even years later, the floor creaks.