News

Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers is now showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries.The Settlers.Weeks into Chile’s Constitutional Convention in August 2021, representative José Luis Vásquez Chogue made an emotional plea on behalf of the Selk’nam people, one of the last Indigenous communities to encounter with Western expansionism at the turn of the twentieth century, whereupon they were systematically murdered. “We always grew up in school hearing we were dead,” he attested, speaking in front of the elected body tasked with drafting a replacement for the nation’s Pinochet-era constitution. Amidst debates around the status of Chile’s many Indigenous groups, Vásquez Chogue recalled that his grandfather was among those held on Dawson Island internment camp in the Strait of Magellan. At the time of his speech, the Chilean government had yet to admit its role in such atrocities, and its constitution was the only one...

Europe’s early 20th-century exploitation of Tierra del Fuego is told in an unsparingly bloody drama-thriller by first-time director Felipe Gálvez Haberle

This almost unbearably brutal and violent western drama-thriller from first-time feature director Felipe Gálvez Haberle was a prize winner at Cannes and Chile’s official entry for best international feature at the Academy Awards. At once explicit and yet mysterious and elliptical, it dramatically recreates some of the story behind the exploitation and colonisation of Tierra del Fuego by European commercial interests and the Santiago political establishment at the beginning of the 20th century. This involved the genocidal slaughter of Indigenous peoples by the now notorious businessman José Menéndez, a kind of Latin American oligarch who had been granted land rights for sheep farming, and used mercenaries to hunt and butcher Patagonian natives; these hired killers included ex-British Army soldier Alexander MacLennan, known as the “red pig...

Director Felipe Gálvez in his debut feature, The Settlers (Los Colonos) has made a brutal, breathtaking and bold Chilean western film that not only enlightens but keeps the audience engaged till the credits roll. Filmed with a 1.50:1 aspect ratio, the director wants us to focus on the characters rather than get distracted by the stunning landscapes Chile is known for. The colors of this film are very stark and at times over-saturated giving out a retro style that fits well with a film in the Western genre. Most Westerns are made with a story based in the United States but this one takes place in Chile which adds a unique feel when watching the film as it is different from the typical surroundings one would expect from an American western film. The film is not made on a huge scale but that does not deter it from being anything short of an epic.

The Settlers simulates several different types of Westerns without committing to one mode. The set-up of Felipe Gálvez’s first feature is classic: Scottish soldier MacLennan (Mark Stanley), American mercenary Bill (Benjamin Westfall) and their Chilean mestizo guide Segundo (Camilo Arancibia), who’s been pressed into service from a chain gang, are sent on a mission by landowner José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro). Making their way on horseback across the Chilean landscape, the three are captured in long zooms and accompanied by the booming tympani of Harry Allouche’s orchestral score. If that music places The Settlers somewhere in the realm of ’50s westerns, […]

The post “Victim Cinema is for People that are Convinced”: Felipe Gálvez on The Settlers first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Settlers simulates several different types of Westerns without committing to one mode. The set-up of Felipe Gálvez’s first feature is classic: Scottish soldier MacLennan (Mark Stanley), American mercenary Bill (Benjamin Westfall) and their Chilean mestizo guide Segundo (Camilo Arancibia), who’s been pressed into service from a chain gang, are sent on a mission by landowner José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro). Making their way on horseback across the Chilean landscape, the three are captured in long zooms and accompanied by the booming tympani of Harry Allouche’s orchestral score. If that music places The Settlers somewhere in the realm of ’50s westerns, […]

The post “Victim Cinema is for People that are Convinced”: Felipe Gálvez on The Settlers first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Chile’s Oscar submission committee made quite the statement in choosing Felipe Gálvez’s The Settlers to represent the country in the Best International Feature race. That’s not just because this directorial debut beat out the latest films by filmmakers who had been previously tapped for the honor, including Pablo Larraín and Maite Alberdi. It’s also that Gálvez asks such tough questions about the South American nation’s history that look even further beyond the long shadow cast by the autocratic regime of Augusto Pinochet.

The Settlers confronts the myths of Chile’s very founding to highlight the original sins that still stain the national fabric. Gálvez’s film follows an unlikely trio consisting of a Scottish soldier (Mark Stanley’s Alexander MacLennan), an American mercenary (Benjamin Westfall’s Bill), and a mixed-race Chilean mestizo (Camilo Arancibia’s Segundo). Their journey starts with a simple command from the...

"You never know who they are going to shoot." Mubi has debuted the official US trailer for an acclaimed Chilean indie drama titled The Settlers, originally Los Colonos in Spanish. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and also played at Toronto, New York, London, & Denver Film Fests. Described as a "visceral & visionary anti-Colonialist Western." Debut writer-director Felipe Gálvez asserts himself as a revelatory new cinematic voice with The Settlers, a searing and indelible take on the Western. A mixed-race Chilean rides south on an expedition led by MacLenan, a former Boer War English captain and Bill, an American mercenary, to fence off land granted to the Spanish landowner José Menéndez. Blending historical specificity with vivid visual style, the film creates a singular immersive vision, arresting in both content and form. Set against stunning mountain landscapes, Chile's Best International Feature Film entry to the 2024 Oscars is a...

There was no doubt in any IndieWire editor’s mind when selecting our list of the Best First Films of 2023: Felipe Gálvez’s “The Settlers” had to be on there. The otherworldly Western, which Mubi is opening in theaters January 12, is Chile’s submission to the 96th Academy Awards, and you can see why: It’s bold, uncompromising storytelling — for a story that needs to be told. Watch the IndieWire exclusive trailer for “The Settlers” below.

Set in the 1890s, “The Settlers” is about the genocide of the Indigenous Selk’nam people who lived in Tierra del Fuego, where the landscapes look more like Iceland than what you might first associate with South America. This is a history that hasn’t often been taught in Chile, and it’s a mark of the nation’s reckoning with its own history that its selection committee for the Oscars would pick...

Felipe Gálvez’s feature-length debut, The Settlers, takes place in an independent Chile at the end of the 19th century that’s still defined by its period of colonization. Figures of power and influence are all either of European extraction or simply Europeans who’ve sailed over to stake claims to land in a rapidly modernizing country. One such businessman, the real-life Spanish oligarch José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro), hires a small band of surveyors to properly map the outlines of territory that he’s recently acquired in the Tierra del Fuego region. That his tract of land extends into Argentina is the first of many indications that capitalism, with its ignorance of national borders, will simply continue colonialism’s tradition of land theft.

Leading the oligarch’s hired hands is Alexander MacLennan (Mark Stanley), a Scottish ex-soldier who treats a simple surveying mission as something akin to a military engagement.

Anti-colonialist western will receive North American premiere at TIFF.

Felipe Gálvez’s Cannes Un Certain Regard Fipresci winner The Settlers has been selected as Chile’s Oscar submission.

‘The Settlers’: Cannes Review

The anti-colonialist western will receive its North American premiere at TIFF next month and will play in the Main Slate at New York Film Festival.

The Settlers takes place in Chile at the start of the 20th century as a wealthy landowner hires three horsemen to mark the perimeter of his property and open a path across Patagonia to the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition, comprising a young Chilean mestizo,...

Chile on Wednesday named the anti-colonialist Western The Settlers from first-time feature filmmaker Felipe Gálvez as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards.

The film coming off a Fipresci Prize win at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Un Certain Regard, joins a list of entrants that includes Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia), The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany), Concrete Utopia (South Korea) and Thunder (Switzerland), as previously announced.

Following forthcoming screenings at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, the pic will be released theatrically in North America by Mubi, which also holds distribution rights for the UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, and India, and will unveil further details as to its release plans at a later date.

Written by Gálvez and Antonia Girardi, in collaboration with Mariano Llinás, The Settler is set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century,...

The setting is Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the Americas, often called el fin del mundo, and though it is 1901 and the beginning of a new century, it certainly feels like the end of the world. It is in this feeling — the immersive sonic and visual textures of a past in which beauty and brutality snap and snarl at each other’s heels — that director Felipe Gálvez’ debut feature excels. “The Settlers” is a heady, opaque western, slow to stir but vicious as a rattlesnake when it does, that marks a highly promising debut, albeit one marred by dialogue and performances that are not always equal to the tectonic gravitas to which this tale of colonial atrocity aspires.

The hierarchy in these contested lands is established early, and sitting at its top is ruthless landowner José Menéndez. Menéndez needs to establish a trade route so that livestock can...

The barbaric, bloody sins of the past come to define what entities govern certain land today, carried out by conquistadors and colonizers who hide behind righteous religious falsities to denigrate an indigenous population. With his directorial debut, a hauntingly conceived Chilean western The Settlers (Los Colonos), Felipe Gálvez localizes an origin story of this horror vis-a-vis the brutal genocide of the now-extinct Selk’nam people, who were native to the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile. While spare early passages are narratively opaque and formally ornate to a distancing fault, the riveting second half––including a chilling reckoning with others occupying the desolate land and a well-executed structural gamble––brings profound expansion to this chilling story of atrocity.

Split into boldly conveyed chapters, The Settlers begins in 1901 in Chile’s Tierra de Fuego province. As commanded by the bloodthirsty José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro), a trio of explorers are sent...

Global distributor, streamer and production company Mubi has acquired Felipe Gálvez’ “The Settlers,” which bowed on Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section.

Mubi has acquired the film for North America, U.K., Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux and India. Mubi will release the film theatrically in the U.S., U.K., and additional territories with release plans to be revealed soon.

“The Settlers” is set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century. A wealthy landowner hires three horsemen to mark out the perimeter of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean across vast Patagonia. The expedition, composed of a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and led by a reckless British lieutenant, soon turns into a ‘civilizing’ raid.

“If something is controversial, it’s a good sign. It means it’s interesting. I am trying to provoke with my film,...

It is the feature debut of Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez.

Distributor and streaming platform Mubi has acquired Felipe Gálvez’ Cannes Un Certain Regard title The Settlers for North America, UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux and India from mk2 Films.

It will be released theatrically in the US and UK, with additional territories with release plans to be announced soon.

Gálvez’s feature debut is an English-language western that unfolds around a rich landowner in 1901 Chile who hires three horsemen to mark out the perimeter of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean across vast Patagonia.

Mubi has picked The Settlers, the latest pic from Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez for North America, the UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, and India.

The pic debuted in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section last night. Mubi has said it will release the film theatrically in the U.S., UK, and additional territories with release plans to be announced.

Set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century, The Settlers follows a wealthy landowner who hires three horsemen to mark out the perimeter of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean across vast Patagonia. The expedition, composed of a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and led by a reckless British lieutenant, soon turns into a “civilizing” raid.

The deal was negotiated with mk2. Producers include Giancarlo Nasi, Benjamín Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matías Roveda, Emily Morgan, Thierry Lenouvel,...

Arthouse streamer Mubi has picked up Felipe Gálvez’ Chilean revisionist Western The Settlers for North America and multiple international territories, including the U.K., Latin America, Turkey, German-speaking Europe, Italy, Benelux and India one day after the film’s premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. Mubi plans to release the film theatrically in the U.S. and U.K. as well as select other international territories.

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Chile, The Settlers revolves around a wealthy landowner’s attempt to set the boundaries of his vast property and forge a route to the Atlantic Ocean through the expansive Patagonia region. Accompanied by a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and a daring British lieutenant, the expedition takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a “civilizing” raid on the locals.

In our review of the film, The Hollywood Reporter called The Settlers a “provocative look at Chile’s colonial past.

Debuting Chilean director Felipe Gálvez doesn’t shy away from controversy. On the contrary: he actually welcomes it.

“I love to be controversial,” he tells Variety in Cannes, where he is introducing blood-soaked Western “The Settlers,” posing some uncomfortable questions about his country’s colonial past.

“If something is controversial, it’s a good sign. It means it’s interesting. I am trying to provoke with my film, because this conversation is far from over.”

Set in 1901, “The Settlers” sees three men hired by a rich Spanish landowner (Alfredo Castro) to mark out his immense property. One is American, one Scottish, one of Indigenous descent. But what is really expected of them is to get rid of the Indigenous tribes.

One of Chile’s most anticipated debuts in recent years, “The Settlers” is produced by Chile’s Quijote Films, Argentina’s Rei Cine, U.K.’s Quiddity Films and Taiwan’s Volos Films.

There’s been a recent trend in international arthouse cinema that dates roughly back to two Argentine movies of the past decade: Lucrecia Martel’s Zama (2017) and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja (2014).

Both films told dark tales of European colonization, and the massacres inflicted on South America’s Indigenous populations, in ways that felt altogether contemporary, eschewing traditional narratives in favor of something more enigmatic and modern. In such movies, the past was reflected through the lens of the present. The characters all wore period costumes and the sets were made to look like they dated from the epoch, but the stories being told, and the way they were being told, felt very much of our time, as if the horrors were still with us.

This trend continued, albeit in a more playful sense, in the Italian film The Tale of King Crab (2021), and in a more spiritual sense in the...

In Budd Boetticher’s 1959 parable of how we remember violence, “Ride Lonesome,” Randolph Scott confronts the man who killed his wife at the very spot where he murdered her.

“That was a long time ago,” the killer said. “I’d almost forgot.” Scott’s reply? “A man can do that.”

So too can a society. Especially when it’s all too convenient to forget things so unpleasant they may shake our very sense of identity. Felipe Galvez’s Chilean Western “The Settlers” may remind some viewers of a Boetticher film when they’re watching it: following three men on horseback on a cross-country journey, it dramatizes questions of identity and belonging, and how these things can be written in violence. Most Boetticher-like, in a tight 98 minutes “The Settlers” says more than a lot of films double its length. It’s one of the most chilling art-Westerns to come along in some time,...