By Goya Dmytryshchak
Seaholme director Daina Reid has received her first Emmy nomination for The Handmaid’s Tale, up against formidable rivals including Game of Thrones.
Reid, whose previous work includes Romper Stomper, The Wrong Girl, Offspring and Sunshine, will fly to the US next month for the awards.
Her nomination for most outstanding directing for a drama series is for The Handmaid’s Tale Holly episode, which features Oprah Winfrey as the voice of resistance radio station, Radio Free America.
The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a totalitarian state known as Gilead where women like June, played by Elisabeth Moss, are known as handmaids and forced to bear children.
“There is nothing in The Handmaid’s Tale that isn’t happening on Earth to a woman somewhere now,” Reid said.
“In Saudi Arabia, women have only just been able to drive cars.
“When the Taliban were in power, women could not be educated.
“So, there is nothing that is fantastical – everything is happening or has happened to control women on Earth. That’s the alarming thing.”
The momentous episode 11 features June pointing a double-barrelled shotgun at her enemies.
“I think probably the most harrowing – God, you’d have to ask Elisabeth Moss – but it was hard with the gun scene with her and Serena Joy and Commander Waterford,” Reid said.
“I think that was quite a challenging scene to do because that’s a very internal psychological decision to make; it’s a moral decision.”
Reid is up against three Game of Thrones episodes: The Long Night, The Iron Throne and The Last Of The Starks, and Killing Eve Desperate Times, Ozark Reparations and Succession ‘Celebration’.
Reid, who moved to Seaholme more than a decade ago, hopes to get more work filming in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
“When we first moved here, I directed Very Small Business with Kim Gyngell and Wayne Hope, so we shot in this area,” she said.
“After that, I did Rush here. Rush was based in Footscray, at the cotton mills, but we shot all around here because, without moving too far, you get a whole range of different looks.”
The Emmy Awards will air in Australia on Foxtel on Monday, September 23 from 10am.
