“The Settlers”, a radical and implacable film-indictment against the genocide of the Indians in Chile

The Chilean director signs a brilliant and committed first feature film on a little-known page in the history of his country: the extermination of the indigenous population. Without any concession.

“Do you want to be part of the nation, yes or no, Rosa? Drink this tea!”, shouts, exasperated, the government envoy to an Indian woman who is content to look him straight in the eyes. She refuses to lend herself to state propaganda by posing in front of a photographer and playing on forced assimilation. This scene superbly depicts the history of the genocide of Chile’s indigenous populations.

In theaters Wednesday December 20, the film Los Colonos (The Settlers) is a radical charge against colonialism. The director, Felipe Gálvez, takes a cold, sharp look at this dark period in the country. The guilty ? He points to them without trembling. For his first feature film, the young filmmaker signs a committed and uncompromising historical thriller.

In the name of civilization

The film begins like a western. On horseback, pistoleros ensure that the workers finish fencing off immense fields, stretching as far as the eye can see. No tree, no obstacle breaks the breath of the wind. We quickly understand that there is a social hierarchy frozen in blood: the landowners, their henchmen, and the less than nothing, the natives. The latter work for the owners or are then hunted down and killed. The “little whites” are also killed as soon as they lose their usefulness. “Here, a penguin is worthless”, a gunslinger says to a worker who has just lost his arm, before shooting him dead in front of everyone.

We are in Chile in 1901, a rich landowner, José Menendez, hires three horsemen – an Englishman, an American and a mixed race – to empty his land of indigenous populations and open the route to the Atlantic. The mixed race, Segundo, sees before his eyes his people disappearing from the face of the Earth in the name of civilization.

Virgin lands

In the name of the sacrosanct law on property, the land is emptied of its inhabitants. Dehumanized, Indians become a “problem”, thieves without faith or law. The scenario has been tested elsewhere. The extermination machine can begin. Rapes and mass murders follow one another. What does Segundo do? He is neither white nor Indian. Between the two. Neutrality is the refuge of cowards, of the indecisive. Felipe Gálvez holds up an implacable mirror to all the protagonists. A genocide cannot fail to affect everyone. Who are the profiteers? Who covered them up? What is the role of the authorities ?

The strength of this film is to take responsibility and name (show) things and not to take refuge behind a pseudo distancing from the facts. In Chile, as in many countries, history is written by the winners. In Chile, the indigenous population has almost disappeared. The settlers, an uncompromising film about the extermination of the Indians. Felipe Gálvez, a brilliant and committed filmmaker.

The sheet

Title : Los Colonos (The Settlers)
Realization : Felipe Galvez
Year of production : 2023
Duration : 97 minutes
Distribution : Dulac Distribution
Synopsis : Tierra del Fuego, Republic of Chile, 1901. An immense, fertile territory that the white aristocracy seeks to “civilize”. Three horsemen are hired by a wealthy landowner, José Menendez, to dispossess the indigenous populations of their land and open a route to the Atlantic. Under the orders of Lieutenant MacLennan, a British soldier, and an American mercenary, the young Chilean half-breed, Segundo, discovers the price of building a young nation, that of blood and lies.