feature film in development by Climax Films:

Veronica: Nothing happens here Oupa.
Buks: Nothing happens?  Veronica, come here.  What are these?
Veronica: Pumpkin seeds.

Buks: A handful of miracles, Veronica.  Every year, in these akkers... thousands of miracles.  And you say nothing happens here?

An old man and his granddaughter, entirely dependent on one another, yet the force of their convictions is enough to destroy all that they have left in the world: each other.
A story of love and loss.. and ghosts and pumpkins.

Lied van die Vallei is an adaptation, in Afrikaans (the common language of the people of the Great Karoo), of Athol Fugard's stageplay Valley Song for film.  As a creative work, Valley Song occupies territory between dreams and reflections on the one hand, and the harsh face of rural poverty on the other. It is the contention of this film that it is this very spectrum that constitutes reality... that lives are lived, sliding, between memory, fantasy and actuality. In application, this concept permits a visual interplay of internal and external realities.

The characters in Valley Song are engaged in the eternal struggle between youthful passion and ambition; and the conservatism of the elderly, born of maturity and fear and diminishing horizons.  Old 'Buks' Jonkers is a product of a near-feudalistic system whereby local gardeners eke out a subsistence living in return for caretaking a landlord's property. Such farmers inevitable acquire a profound and intimate connection with the land - which, in Buks' case, forms the basis of his world-view.  He has cocooned himself within a simplistic, old-fashioned philosophy that would undoubtedly be scorned by younger generations.

Veronica, Buks' granddaughter, is growing up in an entirely new era - or, at least, it is supposed to be.  She is in her late teens, vivacious, passionate and ambitious... and in the wrong place.  Veronica dreams of a career as a pop star.  Her frustrations are with her geographic misfortune and the apparent lack of social improvement - but are mainly vented on her grandfather and his stubborn acceptance of the status quo

With her music and her romantic aspirations, she is, at the same time, somewhat out of step with the coarse and slavish culture of some of her peers.  Veronica is a burgeoning creative spirit, insatiably attuned to musical influences that emanate and resound about her.. from church to shebeen, from Billie Holiday to Brenda Fassie.  The surrounding hills echo with the clicks of forgotten languages and the ring of konsertina and traditional blik kitaar.  Out of this Veronica's songs emerge. They are a commentary of her circumstances, and the voice of her desires - and are threaded through the film

Over that will be layered the things that we know, but ordinarily do not see. Be that the miracle of a germinating seed beneath the ground, or its trampling by a ghost from Buks' memory.  Veronica will get to wear that shimmering green dress and long, silken gloves - if only in a pumpkin field.  We will see her dreams.. nearly as convincingly as she does.