Browse Movies : IFC Films : 2006

Directed and co-written by Patrick Stettner, "Night Listener", tackles the narrative of Armistead Maupin's most haunting page-turner, in which popular public radio storyteller Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) develops an intense phone relationship with a young listener named Pete (Rory Culkin) and the social worker who rescued him from a life of abuse (Toni Collette). But Gabriel soon comes to the startling realization that it is quite possible that neither the boy nor his painful account of his childhood really exist.

An ex-con returns to his hometown after a three year prison stint and becomes embroiled in an affair with a woman who is married to his best friend, the local sheriff.

A breakthrough investigation into Hollywood's best-kept secret: the MPAA film ratings system and it's profound impact on American culture.

Based on the novel by Charles Bukowski, this drama follows the author's fictional alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, as he moves from town to town looking for work and women in the 1940s.

This is the strange, disturbing story of the Manderlay plantation.

Manderlay lay on a lonely plain somewhere in the deep south of the USA. It was in the year of 1933 that Grace and her father had left the township of Dogville behind them. Grace's father and his army of villains had spent the entire winter seeking out new hunting grounds in vain, and now they were heading south in one last attempt to find a favourable location in which to take up residence.

By chance their cars stop in the state of Alabama in front of a large iron gate bearing a thick chain and a padlock. Beside the gate, a dead oak tree towers over a heavy boulder with Manderlay hewn in monumental letters into the granite.

Just as Grace, her father and his men are about to leave after a short break and a quick lunch, a young black woman runs up to the car. She knocks on Grace's window. She hammers at the glass in despair. Ignoring her father's advice to leave others to their own affairs, Grace follows the girl through the gates of Manderlay and there, she finds a group of people living as if slavery had not been abolished seventy years earlier, with white masters and black slaves...

Grace believes that she has a duty to make it up to the slaves for injustices they have suffered at the hands of her kind: 'we brought them here, we abused them and made them what they are', as she argues to her father; and she decides that having liberated Manderlay, she will remain at the plantation until she has seen them through their first harvest.

Her father grudgingly leaves her with four henchmen and a lawyer, warning Grace that he won't be there to pick up the pieces when her plans for the resurrection of Manderlay fall apart...

"CSA: The Confederate States of America", through the eyes of a faux documentary, takes a look at an America where the South won the Civil War. Supposedly produced by a British broadcasting company, the feature film is presented as a production being shown, controversially, for the first time on television in the States. Beginning with the British and French forces joining the battle with the Confederacy, thus assuring the defeat of the North at Gettysburg and ensuing battles, the South takes the battle northward and form one country out of the two. Lincoln attempts escape to Canada but is captured in blackface. This moment is captured in the clip of a silent film that might have been. Through the use of other fabricated movie segments, old government information films, television commercials, newsbreaks, along with actual stock footage from our own history, a provocative and humorous story is told of a country, which, in many ways, frighteningly follows a parallel with our own. After victory, President Davis brings slavery back to the northern states by offering a tax rebate to businesses and households who will buy and own them. Liberals move to Canada. The nation chooses an expansionist policy and conquers Mexico and South America. As world war looms, the CSA takes a non-aggressive stance toward the Third Reich and their move toward racial purity (although not condoning their wasting of possible slave stock by the Final Solution) and makes a preemptive strike on Japan on December 7, 1941. Kennedy is assassinated soon after being elected, as it appears he will not only emancipate but also give women the vote. A growing black terrorist base stems from Canada and a Cold War breaks out...complete with the Cotton Curtain being built between the two countries. Through it all, including a contemporary run for the presidency, we follow a political dynasty, the Fauntroy family, who lead the country through its triumphs and tragedies. We arrive to a today that, in many ways, we recognize. Although a nation that is content and prosperous, there is a tremendous divide within and suspicious eye without. Current politicians refer to us as two countries and perhaps, other than geographically, there is no difference between Red and Blue or North and South states. We have always struggled as to whether we are the United or Confederate States of America.

A chubby, brainiac 18-year-old schoolgirl forms an unexpected bond with a thirtysomething pizza deliveryman/political activist with a history of failed relationships.

The explores dark adolescent issues through three friends' reactions after a boy (Conor Donovan) dies in a tree house fire set by local bullies. His twin brother (also played by Donovan) sets out for revenge, and an overweight survivor of the fire (Jesse Camacho) loses his sense of taste and smell, leading him to force his obese mother to lose weight. Their female friend (Zoe Weizenbaum) tries to seduce a grief-stricken patient of her therapist mother (Annabella Sciorra).

Seven days, 45 finalists, one World Champion. Shot on location in Las Vegas, Nevada, "Rank" takes us from the ranch to the arena for the fascinating struggle of the three highest-ranking bull riders competing for the title of PBR World Champion. Contenders Justin McBride, a third generation bull rider; Mike Lee, a 21 year-old born-again Christian; and Adriano Moraes, a two-time PBR World Champion bring the gritty reality of this hazardous sport into focus for the first time. From preparations to ride through severe injuries and finally, victory for one: a gold belt buckle and a check for one million dollars.