Virginia Film Festival

Official Oscar^© Selection—Chile

At the turn of the twentieth-century, Segundo, a Chilean of European and Latin descent, is hired by a wealthy Spanish landowner to help establish a perimeter around the land given to him by the State. Led by the British Lieutenant MacLennan and assisted by an American mercenary, the three horsemen travel through the vast expanse of uncharted territory in the hopes of opening a route to the Atlantic Ocean through Patagonia.

What starts as an administrative task soon morphs into a “civilizing” raid on the native Ona people who have lived on the land for centuries. Segundo realizes his duties are not for the development of his home country but for its destruction. Eerie and striking, Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s directorial debut exposes the darkness of colonialism in South America that is too often kept in the shadows of history.

“A scorching Western that examines Chile’s blood-soaked national myth”
–The Playlist, Carlos Aguilar