Vallei van Sluiers (Valley of Veils) is a South African, Afrikaans-language television drama series which revolves around three well-known Boland fruit farming families - the De Bruyns, the Roberts' and the Van Rhijns - and the people who are drawn into their disasters, quarrels and scandals.
Set behind the 'fruit curtain' in the Ceres Valley, the series lifts the lid on what is brewing in the Boland.
Gradually, the secrets of the three land barons - Con De Bruyn, Boykie Roberts and Markus van Rhijn - are peeled off and exposed.
All three families have been plagued by tragedies over the years. Con's wife, Frederika, died of cancer at a young age. Con raised the boys to the best of his abilities, well supported by Oom Boykie and Ta'Effie Roberts.
And when the kids were grown up and independent, Con suddenly realised he was alone and middle-aged. First, the sporting and fruitcutter circles in which he was moving were enough of a diversion, but gradually he became more and more aware of his desire for togetherness and camaraderie.
The Van Rhijns also had setbacks. Markus and Emmarentia van Rhijn have only one child, Monique. Emmarentia's second pregnancy, which was terminated after four months of complications, ended with the news that she could never bear children again, which left Markus without a male heir.
The hopes of building the Van Rhijn name took a hit in the '70s when Markus's younger brother, Bertus, went missing in Angola.
After their father's death, the two brothers were named the joint heirs of the enormous fruit estate. After 10 years, Markus went to court and obtained a certificate of confirmation in which Bertus was declared presumably dead, thus making him the sole owner of Van Rhijnshoek.
Oom Boykie and Ta'Effie had two young boys, a few years younger than the De Bruyn boys. One Sunday afternoon, the two, Ryan and Richard, drowned at the watering hole. With them was Beulah, their younger sister.
Their bodies were taken out of the hole the next morning. As a result of the shock, Beulah lost her speech, went into hallucinatory hysteria every now and then and was regularly plagued by severe nightmares.
Oom Boykie and Ta'Effie saw the opportunity to help Con with raising Hugo and Jacques as a gift from above to help them get over Ryan and Richard's death.
On the surface life is peaceful and quiet in the Valley... but with a new generation coming into control of family interests, the dead who "rise up" from the grave and with old uncles and aunts who can no longer feed themselves, the secrets and bitterness of the past decades slowly but surely come to the surface... with surprising consequences.
Vallei van Sluiers is a kykNET Production produced by Baobab TV Produksies (first two seasons) and Quantum Productions (last two seasons) for kykNET. The series was written by Johan van Jaarsveld and Louis Pretorius and directed by Elizabeth Archer.
Johan van Jaarsveld and Dini Nondumo were producers on the first season and the supervising producer for kykNET was Marida Swanepoel. Music was by Craig Ormond.