And that was the moment the idea for her first film as writer and director – a short called Ashes 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.”

Haig stars in the film, with Michael Caton (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.”

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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 series Surviving 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 with Police 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.”

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