It all started with a photo. A black-and-white picture from 1863 caught the attention of Chilean director Felipe Gálvez Haberle and became the seed for his debut film. The picture depicted soldiers posing with mutilated bodies like hunting trophies. A shard from a forgotten chapter in Chile’s history – a country that, according to the filmmaker, does everything to avoid looking in the rearview mirror. “The settlers” approaches the men in front of and behind the camera in the photo with the aim of confronting the myth-making behind the birth of the homeland.
The year is 1901 and three riders are moving across a vast plain landscape. The cinematography is gritty and the western soundtrack so pompously catchy that thoughts go to Sergio Leone and “The Macahan Family”. But the men’s working methods soon create a strong dissonance against the heroic notes.
