Chile, 1901. Intent on expanding his holdings, notorious cattle rancher José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro) dispatches a trio of gunmen to the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego to scout and scourge the land. A former British infantryman, MacLennan (Mark Stanley) has nominal command, though rancid American roughneck Bill (Benjamin Westfall) has his own ideas about that, while mestizo Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) knows a word out of place could result in a bullet in his back. Their odyssey across a forbiddingly harsh, ugly-beautiful terrain includes tense, fractious encounters with other colonists and bloody skirmishes with indigenous groups. Evocative of the work of Cormac McCarthy in its commitment to brutal truth-telling (although much of the violence takes place off-screen, it doesn’t feel that way) this South-western makes no bones about its searing critique of white supremacist foundational myths; myths that apply right across the Americas. What’s most impressive, though, is the stunning, elemental imagery limned by DP Simone D’Arcangelo and Harry Allouche’s striking, scratchy score. The Settlers can be a hard ride, but it’s not one you’ll forget in a hurry.
Supported by
Alfredo Castro, Mark Stanley, Benjamin Westfall, Camilo Arancibia
Chile/Argentina/France/
Denmark/UK
2023
Panorama
In Spanish and English with English subtitles
Racist Content, Colonial Violence, Sexual Violence
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Fernando Bascuñán, Alex C. Lo, Constanza Erenchun, Amy Gardner
Producer
Giancarlo Nasi, Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matías Roveda, Emily Morgan, Thierry Lenouvel, Stefano Centini, Katrin Pors, Eva Jakobsen, Mikkel Jersin, Kristina Börjeson, Anthony Muir, Ingmar Trost, Fernando Bascuñán
Screenwriter
Felipe Gálvez Haberle, Antonia Girardi
Cinematography
Simone D’Arcangelo
Editor
Matthieu Taponier
Production Design
Sebastián Orgambide
Director
Felipe Gálvez
Felipe Gálvez (b. 1983) is a Chilean filmmaker, writer and editor based in Paris. The Settlers is his first feature as director.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Caravaggio
In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.
Train Dreams
A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.
Wisdom of Happiness
An audience with the Dalia Lama, who, at 90, looks back on his life and shares the tenets of Buddhism as a practical guide to surviving the 21st Century with joy and compassion.
Köln 75
The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.
La Belle at the Movies + Apostles of Cinema
Cecilia Zoppelletto's lyrical documentary examines the fate of cinephilia in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital city, currently without a single operating cinema. + Apostles of Cinema (Tanzania, 17 min)