The George Lindsey Film Festival ran from Thursday to Saturday of last week, despite problems with George Lindsey’s health and postponements of several guests.

Due to health problems, Lindsey was unable to attend the festival, which led to an April postponement of a salute to George Lindsey, which will feature Lulu Roman and Ray Stevens, though the festival did succeed in showcasing filmmakers from throughout the country.

“It was a very successful festival,” said Cynthia Burkhead, co-chair of the festival’s steering committee and English professor at UNA. We devoted much of our energy and other resources to showing our filmmakers how important they and their work are to us, and that focus really paid off.”

Most of the filmmakers present at the festival had work screened at the Zodiac Theater during the festival, including the crews for “Torch,” “Michael,” “The Ah of Life” and “Sloss: Industry to Art.”

Saturday night’s award ceremony honored the films and screenplays chosen by judges as the best of their categories, including “Achille” as best Student Narrative and Best of Show, “Sloss: Industry to Art” as Best Professional Documentary and “Winslow and the Emperor” as Best Feature Screenplay.

The audience choice award of the screenings went to two movies this year: Banks Helfrich’s “The Ah of Life” and young filmmaker Luke Broyles’ film “Michael,” in a rare tie that showed how the filmmakers and the audience can learn about each other.

“Tying was great,” said Donna Broyles, mother of Luke Broyles, on being part of the festival experience. “We made a special effort to make it to his movie.”

According to Helfrich, he spent large amounts of time and effort promoting his film and the festival throughout the week, and was thrilled to win the award.

“The audience award is better than any other award, because the audience voted for it,” Helfrich said.

The festivities started last Thursday with a kickoff party at On the Rocks in Florence, though space was limited, even with a smaller crowd than most other events.

“It’s a good thing not too many people show up, or we wouldn’t be able to fit them all,” said Roger Henry, a longtime attendee of the festival.

Though On the Rocks was crowded Thursday night, the attendees did enjoy the event and the restaurant was generous in donations to the festival.

“It’s unlikely we’ll move, but we may change how we set it up,” said Jason Flynn, co-chair of the festival’s steering committee and assistant professor of film and digital media production at UNA.

“They’ve hosted it the last two years, and have been gracious to us,” Flynn said.

The only panel this year, due to the postponement of guests, according to Flynn, was on rural humor and how it has been portrayed in radio and television.

The panel included Tim Hollis, Allan Newsome, local actor Danny Vinson and Jacob Podber in the discussion.

Podber, the auhor of “The Electronic Front Porch,” covered the growth of rural humor from radio to television, while Newsome and Hollis brought their expertise into the discussion and covered series like “The Andy Griffith Show” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Vinson brought an actor’s perspective to the conversation of southern humor in popular culture, and explained how the humor reflected the southern style of thinking.

“We don’t want to show off, we don’t want to brag,” Vinson said. “It’s our way-we tell the truth.”

This viewpoint frequently clashes with out-of-area producers, directors and film crew, according to Vinson.

“When southern is thought of, stupid is connected,” Vinson said, explaining Hollywood’s general reflection to southerners. “They can make fun of us, but when they need us, they need us.”