On August 13, 1521, a few hundred Spanish conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortés, declared the fall of the Aztec Empire. On the 500-year anniversary of that invasion, director Rodrigo Reyes presents 499, a film —part documentary, part fiction— that explores the violent legacy of the Spanish conquest.

In 499, an anonymous conquistador is shipwrecked on the shores of present-day Mexico. After discovering that he is in the 21st century, this ghostly figure starts to retrace the steps he walked five centuries before—only now he is forced to witness the brutal consequences of hundreds of years of colonialism.