Rapanui, the hidden history of Easter Island

Easter Island is colonised by Chile in 1888.

Very quickly, Chile rents the lands of the Island to an intensive sheep breeding company. So that the livestock graze freely, and to avoid theft, Chilean soldiers imprison the 400 inhabitants of Easter Island – the Rapa Nui, in a village surrounded with barbed wire.

The Rapa Nui are prisoners on their own island and they remain so for over half a century.

Unable to bear the repeated humiliations, many try to resist the opposition and pay the price. For some, there is only one solution: escaping with small boats to rejoin their Polynesian brothers on Tahiti, more than 4,000 kilometres away.

For the first time, after years of silence, the Rapa Nui agree to talk about this brutal colonisation which has woven their destiny. Evidence is there to remind us that there have always been people behind the Moai.

The documentary film retraces this tragic story and examines its repercussions today.