The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) has announced the creative documentary 499 by Mexican-American director Rodrigo Reyes as the winner of the Best Feature Film Award at the 2021 LASA Film Festival, which will take place May 26-29 in an online version in unison with the annual LASA Congress (originally scheduled to take place in Vancouver, Canada).
To commemorate the historical occasion of the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 2021, director Reyes offers in 499 a bold, hybrid cinema experience, mixing non-fictional and performative elements with components of a road movie. Through the eyes of a ghostly conquistador, Reyes recreates Hernán Cortez’s epic journey from the coasts of Veracruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the site of contemporary Mexico City. As the anachronistic fictional character interacts with real victims of Mexico’s failed drug wars, the filmmaker portrays the country’s current humanitarian crisis as part of a brutal and unfinished colonial project, still in motion, 499 years later.
Additionally, the LASA Film Festival also announced the Argentine documentary film Compañero/a by Alejandra Vassallo and Juan Bugarín as the winner of this year’s Best Short Film Award. The film documents the May 2017 rally against the Supreme Court ruling that would have liberated the military who had committed crimes against humanity during the dictatorship. A spontaneous meeting of half a million people claiming for justice.
The awards were selected by a committee comprised by María Eugenia Ulfe, 2021 LASA Film Festival Director, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Susana M. Kaiser, University of San Francisco; Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, FILMADRID; and Gabriela Zamorano Villarreal, Colegio de Michoacán. The full lineup of this year’s LASA Film Festival program will be announced soon.
