Season of Crimson Blossoms

In conservative Northern Nigeria, the salacious affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and a 26 year-old weed dealer and political thug with the very unusual name Hassan ‘Reza’ is bound to cause more than a ripple. Brought together by some unusual circumstances, both see a need only each other could satisfy. Binta, who before the encounter, is reconciling herself with God, has the need to unshackle herself from the sexual repression that characterised her marriage, and a deprivation that typified her widowhood. But beyond that, there is her desire to redeem herself for the loss of her first son, whose tragic death haunts her still. And so when the thug, Reza, whose real name not many people remember, arrives with a heart emptied by the absence of a mother who abandoned him when he was months old, and rekindles Binta’s passions, they strike it off. As word of his unwholesome liaison with the widow Binta spreads and draws condemnation and social ostracisation for Binta, things get to a head when Binta’s rich son confronts the thug with disastrous consequence. Set in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, this story of relationships, and the lack of it, unfurls gently, revealing layers of human emotions and desires.