Liffe after Liffe:
Late Shift (Heldin)

Directed by and screenplay: Petra Volpe
Switzerland, Germany, 2025, 92'

Cankarjev dom Cinema Late Shift (Heldin)

Cinematography: Judith Kaufmann
Cast: Leonie Benesch (Floria Lind), Sonja Riesen (Bea Schmid), Urs Bihler (Mr. Leu), Margherita Schoch (ga. Kuhn), Jürg Plüss (Mr.. Severin), Alireza Bayram (Jan Sharif), Ridvan Murati (Mr. Osmani), Urbain Guiguemde (Nana), Selma Jamal Aldin (Amelie Afshar)
Production: Zodiac Pictures International&MMC Zodiac GmbH& SRF – Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen& SRG SSRE
Distribution: Demiurg
Festivals, awards (selection): Berlinale 2025

Relating to the experience of an overworked nurse, Petra Volpe's drama raises questions about human fallibility and empathy towards healthcare workers pushed to their limits.

Floria, a nurse, works with great dedication on the surgical ward of a Swiss hospital. She never puts a foot wrong, always has an open ear for her patients even in the most stressful of situations, and is immediately at hand in an emergency. But everyone has their own limits. When Floria arrives for the late shift one day, a nurse is absent from the fully occupied and already chronically understaffed ward. Despite the hectic pace, Floria manages to attend to a seriously ill mother and an old man urgently awaiting a diagnosis. But then she makes a disastrous mistake, setting in motion a nerve-racking race against time.

We wanted to create a physical experience for the audience. We wanted to get their heartbeat up and make people feel out of breath from just watching the film. To feel as if they had worked the shift themselves. / ... / The drama every nurse experiences on understaffed wards is that she literally can't split herself in three or four, and it's not only her who pays the price but the patients. We really wanted to honour and show the drama of that, and the camera helps, which becomes more fragmented over time because she can't split herself.
Petra Volpe

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