The American Sector

The American Sector
USA, 2020, 68’
in English w/ Arm. subtitles

Directors and Scriptwriters: Courtney Stephens, Pacho Velez
Cinematographer: Pacho Velez
Producer: Pacho Velez
Editors: Dounia Sichov, Courtney Stephens
Sound: Courtney Stephens

For 18 months, Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez traveled the US to document sections of the Berlin Wall that are on display in over 75 locations, ranging from the serious (Fort Benning) to the bizarre (Main Street Station Casino in Las Vegas) and even the campus of nearby Capital University. Along the way, interviews with unusual characters who own, maintain, and interact with pieces of the wall offer a window into American culture, and through the film, these Cold War relics become a catalyst for exploring today’s timely issues.

Courtney Stephens

Courtney Stephens is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her non-fiction and experimental films address the contours of language, historical memory, and women’s lives. Her work has been exhibited at the Berlinale, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Film Festival, The National Gallery of Art, South by Southwest, The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, and Hong Kong, Camden, Mumbai, Luxembourg, Dhaka, and San Francisco International Film Festivals. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a California Humanities Grant, fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Pocantico, and the Sloan Foundation, and was one of Filmmaker Magazine‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. A graduate of the American Film Institute, she co-founded the Los Angeles microcinema Veggie Cloud and has curated film programs for The Getty, Museum of the Moving Image, Union Docs, and Flaherty NYC.

Filmography

Ida Western Exile (2015), Mixed Signals (2018), The American Sector (2020), Cinema-19 (co-director, 2020), Perfect Fifths (2021), Terra Femme (2021).

Pacho Velez

Pacho Velez is a non-fiction filmmaker working at the intersection of ethnography, contemporary art, and political documentary. His feature, The Reagan Show, explores a prolific actor’s defining role: Leader of the Free World. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival before being broadcast on CNN. His feature, Manakamana, won a Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. It played around the world, including at the Whitney Biennial and the Toronto International Film Festival. Pacho received his MFA from CalArts. He has taught filmmaking at Princeton University, Harvard University, Bard College, Parsons the New School, and MassArt. In 2015, he was awarded a Princeton Arts Fellowship. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of Screen Studies at The New School.

Filmography

Occupation (2002), Orphans of Mathare (2003), Bastards of Utopia (2010), Manakamana (2013), Dragstrip (2015), The Starting Line (short, 2017), Mr. Yellow Sweatshirt (short, 2017), The Reagan Show (2017), The American Sector (2020), Searchers (2021).