Rooftop Cinema: The American Sector at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Rooftop Cinema returns to the sculpture garden atop MMoCA on State Street for a 17th season, now on Thursday nights in August. The outdoor series, which has showcased everything from experimental animation to concert films to offbeat narratives, now shifts its thematic lens towards a four-film slate of personal documentaries. Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez’s The American Sector (2020) kicks off Rooftop’s 2022 programming here. The succinct 70-minute film is a fusion of travelogue, political documentary, and art appreciation, as the co-directors capture sections of the Berlin Wall that have been reappropriated and displayed in over 75 locations across the United States, from Fort Benning to Vegas. Based on Velez’s prior work with slow cinema ethnographic fiction Manakamana (a 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival selection), expect a distinctive eye for detail and resonant commentary on American values. —Grant Phipps