EXCLUSIVE: Smashing Dandelions, the new production company founded by The Mauritanian writer and producer Michael Bronner and Bhakti Shringarpure, has set plans to adapt Ghost Season, the novel by Sudanese-American writer Fatin Abbas, into a feature film.
South Sudanese documentary filmmaker Akuol de Mabior (No Simple Way Home) is attached to write and direct, marking her debut in narrative features. Bronner and Shringarpure will produce.
The novel is described as a haunting portrait of five strangers forging fragile bonds amid war and displacement on the Sudanese border. In the book, five strangers – a white American geographer, a South Sudanese translator, a northern Sudanese cook, a Sudanese-American filmmaker, and a local boy – find themselves at an NGO compound in the fictional town of Saraaya, on the border of Sudan and South Sudan. As civil war looms, their lives intertwine through unlikely alliances and emotional entanglements, until war and betrayal force difficult choices.
Smashing Dandelions was founded in 2024 as a collaboration between Michael Bronner, known for his work on titles like The Mauritanian, Rogue Agent, Green Zone, Captain Phillips, and United 93, and writer-producer and scholar Bhakti Shringarpure. Smashing Dandelions is currently executive producing Nuur, a feature film from trailblazing director Lula Ali Ismaïl, starring Sabrina Elba, and adapted from the novel Youth of God by Hassan Ghedi Santur.
Bronner spent decades in reporting roles at CBS News/60 Minutes, Vanity Fair, and Foreign Policy before transitioning into film as a writer-producer. Shringarpure is the founder of Warscapes magazine (Bronner is also a co-founding editor) and is currently a professor of global literature at the University of Connecticut. Smashing Dandelions is based in Paris.
The rights to Ghost Season were optioned in a deal brokered by The Wylie Agency on behalf of the author, and Linda Lichter of Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman, Rogal, Shikora & Clark, Inc., on behalf of Smashing Dandelions.
“Ghost Season is a character-driven political drama that embodies our commitment to nuanced, globally conscious storytelling,” Bronner and Shringarpure said in a statement. “Fatin Abbas has given us a moving story that explores characters forced to make difficult choices as war looms on the horizon. This adaptation aligns perfectly with our mission to bring underrepresented perspectives to the screen through bold, engaging, and entertaining stories. We are proud to collaborate with Akuol de Mabior and admire her documentary work. We believe that she is a powerful new directorial voice.”
