Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens’s The American Sector is an astonishing work of nonfiction filmmaking, a patient and well-observed portrait of American society and values. The filmmakers travel the country and hold their patient camera on fragments of the Berlin Wall, while capturing snippets of off-screen conversations from visitors to these monuments or at times directly interviewing the individuals who have procured, maintain, or come as tourists to these relics of the past. In embarking on this project, Velez and Stephens’s camera have transformed these enormous slabs on concrete into windows that let us peer inside our country’s soul. The filmmakers give us space to make connections between the divided Germany of Cold War years and our own deeply divided nation, and it’s hard to avoid thoughts of our own borders and the ways so many fiercely attempt to keep out our neighbors to the south. Then there are the strange ways Americans attempt to either present or possess history – all on full display here. Without making any grand statements or giving us a thesis in bullet points, this may well end up being one of the most profound cinematic portraits of the American psyche to come out in recent years.