How ‘Wild Horse Nine' became the second film ever to shoot on Easter Island

Wild Horse Nine writer-director Martin McDonagh and producer Graham Broadbent have expressed their gratitude to the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island for allowing them to be the second film ever to shoot on the island.

“We worked with [production company] Fabula in Chile, who helped us connect with Easter Island,” said Broadbent, in response to a question from Screen at the film’s Venice press conference about securing permissions to shoot on the island off the coast of Chile. 

“We approached the council there about 12 months before we started shooting, and began to get comfortable with each other. We wanted them to trust us, and us to trust that process with them.

“There has only been one film made there before,” said McDonagh [1994 action-adventure Rapa Nui]. “We had to bring all the cameras, all the period cars. It was a whole process of travel by boat.”

“One of the things for me was that the Rapa Nui people would feel they were completely respected,” said the filmmaker. “And when they see the film – when they see what we were trying to do, which was to portray the beauty of the island and how much we respected the moment.”

“The island is a UNESCO World Heritage site, an incredibly beautiful place,” said Broadbent. Those Moai [the famous stone statues], there’s about 1000 on the island. They’re all sacred. So the process of getting there, getting them [the Rapa Nui] comfortable with what we were doing, and respecting each other and enjoying that was terrific.

“Our idea was ‘leave nothing behind’. Take in what we take, leave nothing behind. We had a great team; it’s a big ship sailing from Santiago, there’s no crew there, we took it all in. We had an extraordinary experience with the islands.”

Set in 1973, Wild Horse Nine follows CIA agents Chris and Lee on a trust-testing mission from Santiago to Easter Island, as they wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies. The film is produced by Broadbent and Peter Czernin’s Blueprint Pictures with Film4, for Searchlight Pictures, and stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell.