American Sector - Courtney Stephens

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989—but in the United States, its fragments remain, scattered as monuments across the country. The American Sector takes viewers on a fractured road trip to more than sixty sites where pieces of the Wall stand in unexpected places: a forest, a hotel lobby, a university campus. Through archival images, interviews, and encounters with everyone from CIA agents to parking attendants, the film asks what these relics mean today. Are they symbols of freedom, historical curiosities, or ideological charms? Moving between Cold War history and contemporary debates on borders, monuments, and immigration, the film reveals how the Wall’s legacy continues to shape America’s imagination.

Co-director Pacho Velez is a nonfiction filmmaker whose work has screened at major festivals including the New York Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, as well as on CNN. His debut feature Manakamana (co-directed with Stephanie Spray) won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2013. A graduate of CalArts with an MFA, Velez currently teaches filmmaking at The New School in New York City.