Advisory Board

Ernest Borgnine – Academy Award winning Actor

Ernest Borgnine is a star of both film and television, and a beloved friend of the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival and the University of North Alabama. He has appeared in almost 200 films and television series, including the 1955 film Marty, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. He has appeared twice at the festival as a special guest. In 1999, Mr. Borgnine donated his collection of scripts to the script collection in the archive at the University of North Alabama.


Natalie Canerday - Actor

Natalie Canerday has appeared in over 25 films, from the big-budget box office favorites, October Sky, Walk the Line, and Biloxi Blues, to critically-acclaimed films One False Move, Sling Blade, and Shotgun Stories. In 1997 Ms. Canerday and the cast of Sling Blade were nominated for Best Ensemble Performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Ms. Canerday has been a long-time supporter and frequent guest of the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival.


Jim Clark - Author and President of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club

Jim is Presiding Goober of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club, which he founded in 1979 while a student at Vanderbilt University. The club today has about 20,000 members in 1,300 odd chapters in the United States and 15 foreign countries. He is co-writer of two dozen books, including Goober in a Nutshell, George Lindsey’s autobiography. He has worked in public relations and promotions for Opryland USA, Vanderbilt University, Holder Kennedy and Co., and as vice president of Schnitzer Communications Marketing Group, a company specializing in book-related and grocery-store promotions. In addition to freelance writing, Jim has served as editor of The Bullet newsletter and its successors, The Pocket and The Button, and has served as associate editor for Card Collectors Digest. A native of Greensboro, N.C., Jim lives in Nashville, Tenn., with his wife, Mary.


Erik Jambor - Executive Director, Indie Memphis Film Festival

A graduate Florida State University's Film School, Erik co-founded the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, Alabama in 1999 and served as Director for its first eight years, developing a festival that rapidly became a filmmaker favorite and served as a catalyst for Birmingham's film community. In 2007, he moved to Bend, Oregon to run the BendFilm Festival where he created a program that The Oregonian called "the best crop of fictional features yet to screen at BendFilm." Erik is now back down South as Executive Director of Indie Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was able to bring a 30% attendance increase to the 11th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival. He has served on a number of film festival juries, including Slamdance, South by Southwest, Atlanta and Nashville.


Danny Vinson - Actor

One of the South's best actors; in a career that only started in 1994, Danny Vinson is at the top of his game and his class as he has worked on over 200 commercials. His burgeoning film career has now caught fire as he works opposite the biggest names in Hollywood. High accolades are attributed to Danny as part of the 6-member Oscar-winning cast of Two Soldiers. These days as the natural southern actor seems to give way to a "Hollywood hick" accent, Vinson's voice and genuine charm will keep this boy from Alabama giving reality to viable rolls that come under the Mason-Dixon line. Danny is an alumnus of the University of North Alabama, where he began his acting career in a UNA theatre production of My Three Angels with Sal Mineo, Broderick Crawford, and Peter Breck. Some of his film work includes Walk the Line, Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby, U.S. Marshalls, When When I Find the Ocean, Honeydripper, Leatherheads, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button