Late Shift: The Shocking Movie That Could Change How You See Nurses Forever

A Swiss film about a nurse pushed to her limits one night is being praised for the picture it paints of treacherously underfunded healthcare. The director talks about the ‘heart-pounding’ story that inspired her

With Late Shift, Volpe aimed to shine a light on the frontlines of the looming healthcare catastrophe through the eyes of the dedicated, exhausted Floria. Played by German actor Leonie Benesch, the young nurse shows an initially acrobatic grace in her workday, whose first half resembles a particularly hectic episode of the restaurant kitchen series The Bear, but with life-and-death stakes.

Arriving for her shift cheery and energetic and taking the time to ask about her colleague’s recent holiday, Floria soon hears that another nurse has called in sick. The looming workload suddenly grows exponentially, compounding the stress and driving up the likelihood she will make a fateful mistake.

The Swiss-born Volpe says she chose the film’s German title Heldin (Heroine) because it took a mythic term often reserved for warriors and applied it to the bravery and self-sacrifice of care work.

‘The work is extremely complex and emotionally charged’ … Leonie Benesch in Late Shift. Photograph: Salvatore Vinci

“This work, which is extremely complex and emotionally charged, is completely devalued in our societies,” Volpe says. “I find it very symptomatic because it’s women’s work – 80% of the people [in many countries] who do this work are female.”

Volpe was inspired by a longtime roommate who worked as a nurse, and by the autobiographical novel Our Profession Is Not the Problem – It’s the Circumstances by German former care worker Madeline Calvelage, who advised her on the script.

“My heart was pounding from the first chapter and I thought to myself – this reads like a thriller,” Volpe says. “But within that stress you find the most tender, human moments.”

The film revolves around the escalating and competing needs of patients on a hospital ward, with a different set of medical and emotional demands lurking behind each door, signalled to the staff by a shrieking call bell.

Benesch’s turbo-driven career has already included roles on The Crown and Babylon Berlin as well as film parts in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Munich Olympics attacks drama September 5 and German Oscar nominee The Teachers’ Lounge. She says a common thread in her most recent characters is “people who burn for what they do”. But she notes it was rare in TV medical dramas to see nurses and their everyday feats front and centre.

Nursing staff from various hospitals in Berlin demonstrate in front of the Zoo Palast on the fringes of the premiere of Heldin in February. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

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Late Shift: The Shocking Movie That Could Change How You See Nurses Forever

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