“We had this ongoing argument about what it meant,” says the Australian actor. “It was me being,‘You’re too uptight about it’,and Dad being,‘It’s a choice,it’s a power thing’.”
Georgina Haig’s film about her relationship with her father screens at the Peninsula Film Festival and is in the running for an AACTA award.Wayne Taylor
Haig recently appeared in,and played Paula Yates in the miniseriesINXS:Never Tear Us Apart,but is perhaps best known for her roles in, andBack to the Rafters(she took over the role from Jessica Marais in Amazon’s 2021 reboot of).
When her father died in late 2022 after finally succumbing to the cancer he had lived with for 25 years,Haig found herself charged with the messy business of dealing with what she calls “the horrible death admin”.
“It’s extensive,there’s so much to do,and you’re trying to do it all in a state of grief,” she says. “It’s a very surreal time.”
So surreal that the day after she was meant to collect his ashes from the funeral home she belatedly realised she had forgotten to do so.
“I was like,‘Oh,my God’. I was so devastated.”
Haig stars alongside Michael Caton inAshes.Supplied
It was the mother of all late-runnings,and when Haig put the box containing his ashes next to her in the car and the seatbelt warning sign began to flash and the dashboard started to emit that annoying noise that it always does when a passenger neglects to buckle up,it felt like he’d finally had the last word.
And that was the moment the idea for her first film as writer and director – a short calledAshes that screens in competition this Saturday at the Peninsula Film Festival,and is in the running next Thursday for an AACTA award – came to her.
“Even in that moment – when I was deeply distressed and upset – I was like,‘Oh,this would make a good short film’,” she says. “That’s the beauty and the curse of the creative process,that it pops into those moments,intrudes and forces you to step out of yourself and see it from the outside.”
Though Haig is credited as the writer ofAshes,she concedes her father – who was himself a filmmaker – ought to have a credit,since some of the best lines come straight from him.Courtesy of Flickerfest
Haig stars in the film,with (The Castle,Last Cab to Darwin) playing the father. Though she’s credited as writer,she concedes her father – who was himself a filmmaker – ought to have a credit,since some of the best lines (including “lateness is a form of tyranny”) come straight from him.
Making the movie was,she readily admits,a way of grieving. “How can it not be? I’m in it,I wrote it,I directed it,I use the bag that his ashes came in because I couldn’t find another.
“I did replace the ashes with a vase,” she hastens to add. “It would probably have been a bit much to have his actual ashes in the bag,though he might have liked being in the film. I feel like I could write a whole thesis on the process because it was pretty interesting.”
Watching the finished work always makes her cry. “I usually tear up at the end when the dedication to Dad comes up,” says Haig,who lives with her screenwriter husband Josh Mapleston (co-creator of the Netflix seriesSurviving Summer) and their daughter on the Mornington Peninsula.
Ashes was shot in Dromana,about five minutes away from where it will be shown on the weekend. “To have such a hyper-local screening with all our friends and family there,and people who are familiar with the environment,will be amazing,” she says.
And for festival founder Steve Bastoni – who has been acting since the early 1980s,but became one of Australian television’s hottest talents withPolice Rescue the following decade – it’s a treat to see a fellow actor step behind the camera.
“I think it’s kind of a natural progression,” he says. “You get sick of sitting around waiting for work to appear,so you just try and generate your own.”
Bastoni is also delighted that the debut outing of a fellow Peninsula resident is among the finalists of the short film festival he launched in 2011 as a way of ensuring his acting students would have somewhere to show their work.
“There’s a lot of talent here on the Peninsula,and with Georgina there’s definitely a strong Peninsula connection.
“But,” he adds,“she definitely will not be given any preference when it comes to judging.”
The Peninsula Film Festival runs Friday February 2 to Sunday February 4 in Rosebud. Details:
TheAACTA Awardswill be broadcast onChannel 10 on Saturday February 10 at 7pm. A longer cut,includingall awards, is on Binge and Foxtel On Demand from 7.30pm Sunday,and on.
Contact the author at,follow him on Facebook at and on Twitter,and read more of his work.
Find out the next TV,streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees..
