Nineteenth-century Patagonia is the setting for Felipe Gálvez's debut feature, which follows a mixed-race Chilean rider recruited into an expedition meant to fence off land granted to a Spanish landowner. Led by a former Boer War English captain and an American mercenary, the journey south turns the frontier into a stage for violence carried out in the name of property.
What is Los colonos about?
The story follows a young Chilean of mixed heritage who joins an expedition commanded by MacLenan, an English former Boer War captain, and Bill, an American mercenary, both hired to secure the boundaries of land awarded to the Spanish landowner José Menéndez. As the group rides south across open Patagonian territory, the expedition's purpose curdles into something far darker, and the rider finds himself caught between the men who command him and the land they have been sent to claim. Gálvez, working from Chile's own settler-colonial history, frames the journey as a western turned inward, using the genre's wide landscapes and slow marches to examine who gets written into a nation's founding story and who does not. The film premiered internationally and was selected as Chile's submission for international feature consideration.
About the cast
Camilo Arancibia leads the cast in the central role, alongside Mark Stanley and Sam Spruell as the two men leading the expedition, with Alfredo Castro, Benjamín Westfall, Mishell Guaña, Agustín Rittano, and Mariano Llinás filling out the ensemble.
Context & significance
The Settlers is a sweeping co-production spanning Argentina, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom, reflecting the scale of financing behind a period western shot across difficult terrain. At 97 minutes, it belongs to crime, drama, historical, and western categories at once, using genre conventions to tell a story rooted in a specific and often overlooked chapter of Chilean history. Its multinational backing is typical of festival-oriented historical dramas that need resources beyond what a single national industry can provide.
Watching Los colonos on Ktime
The Settlers streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving Farsi-speaking viewers both ways to watch. A free K-Time account login is required to stream, though the film's page is open to read without one. K-Time's Farsi-first interface makes historical dramas like this one easy to find for the Iranian diaspora alongside the rest of the catalogue.