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| Late Shift |
Director Petra Volpe’s Late Shift (Heldin) follows Floria (Leonie Benesch), a nurse working on an understaffed surgical ward of a Swiss hospital. Despite the escalating stress, she tirelessly works to ensure her patients, among them a private patient who bemoans the lack of attention, an ill young mother and an elderly man, receive empathetic care. Then, an error is made that may break Floria’s resolve.
It’s unsurprising that the original German title means Heroine, given that Volpe’s drama pays tribute to nurses working on healthcare’s frontlines. Late Shift also continues the director’s inclination for female-centred stories.
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| Petra Volpe |
The Christmas Eve-set drama Dreamland (Traumland) sees prostitute Mia interact with four different people, while in The Divine Order (Die Göttliche Ordnung), a young housewife in early 1970s Switzerland starts a petition in her rural village for women’s right to vote. Prior to Dreamland and The Divine Order, Volpe also directed the drama about a female baker in her fifties who falls in love with an Argentinian dance teacher in the comedy Frühling Im Herbst, and a wife and mother escaping her husband and children in Schönes Wochenende.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Volpe discussed imposter syndrome, working in harmony with human nature, and the terrifying reality of filmmaking. She also reflected on creating a physical experience for the audience, cinema’s capacity for true empathy and the campfire tradition.
Paul Risker: Why filmmaking as a means of creative expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment for you personally?
Petra Volpe: I come from a working-class family — my father is an Italian factory worker, and my mother’s a secretary. So, I didn't grow up surrounded by art. We watched television, but we almost never went to the cinema, except maybe on the weekend as a special treat to watch something like Tarzan. So, it wasn’t something I thought about as a child. The idea of becoming a director didn't exist for me because I didn't even know it existed.
So, it was a pretty long journey for me, but I was always interested in storytelling even as a kid. Then I became interested in photography and everything, little-by-little, led to film.
I didn't go to film school until I was 27. I went to study screenwriting for four years and started to make short movies. And that's how little-by-little I got into film. But my parents still wonder, ‘How is she our daughter?’ They’re very proud now, but in the beginning, they didn't quite understand what I was up to.
PR: ‘What we are’ versus ‘who we feel we are’ can often be out of synch. I remember speaking to a director who remarked that the term 'filmmaker' is a strange and slightly ambiguous one. I've spoken with others who say that it took a number of films before they felt they could call themselves a filmmaker. This can provoke feelings of imposter syndrome. Is this something that resonates with you?
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| Late Shift |
PV: That’s an interesting subject because for a very long time I did feel like an imposter, like many probably do — ‘When is anybody going to find out that I don't know what I'm doing?’ Sometimes I still feel like that on set, or I have these dreams of failing, where I'm the only one on set who doesn't know what's happening. I have this dream every time I'm shooting a movie, where my whole team knows what they're doing except for me, and I'm trying to hide from them that I have no idea what scene we're shooting and what this film is about.
Writing is a little bit more concrete because you write something and it either touches people, or it doesn’t. But what makes a good director? And especially on set, everybody is a professional, and their jobs are concrete. But as a director, you're constantly discovering because every actor needs something different and so, you never know if you’re giving them what they need.
Directing is so ephemeral and, for me, it is like being a midwife. I’ve become more self-confident in the feeling that I don't have to be the person on set who knows everything. But in the beginning, when you're young, and you're just starting out, you feel like you need to be the boss. You have all these ideas about how directing works, and historically, it has been a woman's job, but it has been taken over by men. To find your way as a woman directing is maybe a longer journey, or at least it was for my generation.
I see my job as really more like midwifery now. I'm helping the baby, along with others, to be born. And it's also very spiritual and tender. It has nothing to do with all these ideas we have of directors screaming on set. I also had to let go of these images and embrace my tenderness to be a good director. And that was a journey to find my own way of directing and not feel like I'm a loser because I'm doing it my way.
PR: What we’re talking about is how human nature is an integral part of the filmmaking process.
PV: My experience is that every day is different, which liberates me. The beauty and the horror of the job is you can't rely on certain things. Of course, there are certain technical aspects of how you shoot a movie.
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| Late Shift |
I work very closely with Judith Kaufmann, my director of photography, and we’ve become symbiotic. We've shot four movies together now, and we move in a way that’s very connected. And we're always looking for the essence and that's our guiding light. But how to get there is different every day because of human nature. The actors and actresses will be in different moods and will be coming from different places on the day. Had they received a phone call? Are they physically not feeling well? You don't know, and all that plays into the day. And I'm trying to work with what everybody brings to the set to see how we can use it for the scene and not go against it. So, you're constantly listening and feeling — it’s a very emotional job.
My grandfather was a baker and, for me, stories are as essential as bread. Cinema is the nourishment for the soul. And for the baker, the dough is different every day. So, through the metaphor of my grandfather, I feel connected to making food, to my family and to this process. But I can't say I completely enjoy directing because it's also terrifying. Everybody can try their best and there can still be something missing, but you still have to make the film. So, it’s a very fragile process.
PR: In Late Shift, the camera appears to almost glide as it follows Floria. It’s a sensibility that you protect by using long takes which immerses the audience in Floria’s non-stop flow as she goes from patient to patient, task to task.
PV: 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. We wanted people to feel as if they had worked the shift themselves. It started in the screenplay, and it was very important for Judith and me to find a way to really depict Floria's physicality with the camera. So, at the beginning of the movie, we have a lot of unedited long shots because we also saw the job as being very athletic.
We both went to the hospital together and observed nurses at work. The athleticism of the job is amazing — they're dragging carts around, and they’re constantly on the move. They never sit down, and so, we wanted to honour that with a camera that flows. And also, we wanted to honour that for our main character, it’s not a lack of motivation and strength that her shift falls apart. She has strengths, she is young, and motivated. She thinks she can do it, but the system is pitted against her. Or it's a run against time, because it's simple math that one person cannot be in two rooms at the same time.
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.
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| Late Shift poster |
PR: Essentially, you start off by positioning the audience to sympathise with and emotionally connect with Floria, but as the stress of her shift escalates, we begin to see ourselves in the patients and their families.
PV: Cinema is a place where you can create real and true empathy because it's very visceral. And for a moment in time, because you are sitting safely in your chair at a distance, you can empathise with both characters and see the whole dilemma. And this kind of complex human situation is one that we're often in.
We live in a time when empathy is not celebrated, and people will publicly say empathy is a problem in our world. I think it's the one thing that can maybe save us, because it’s what connects us, and that’s the power of cinema. We use all the tools to create this moment where there is no right or wrong. Instead, it’s about people feeling something. But, we have to remind ourselves there's always another person who has feelings, and it’s the capacity to empathise that makes us human. Sometimes we forget that when we're sitting by ourselves in front of our computers. But when you cry or laugh together in the cinema, it's a moment of connection, and that's why I hope cinema doesn’t die, because the screen is like the campfire we sit around, and we will lose something that's essential for humans.
PR: We imagine telling scary stories around the campfire, but they can also be stories that help us to see ourselves, our community and the world differently.
PV: Campfires used to also be a place where you just shared stories — it doesn't have to be a horror story [laughs]. People would sit and share stories about their ancestors and their everyday lives.
We have all these superhero movies, but true heroism for me today is on a hospital ward where a nurse does the job of two people. We also live in a time of escapism because people are so overwhelmed with everything that’s going on — all the wars, violence and cruelty. But we need to remind ourselves of things that are close to us and how we can be better people.
PR: Late Shift may be more aptly described as engaging and emotionally thought-provoking than entertaining. However, this might only be out of respect for its heavier subject matter.
PV: As a filmmaker, I find it more attractive to create something that is both and that’s not a contradiction. We are entertained by horrible things — we've always had the Brothers Grimm fairy tales that are horrible, where children get eaten by wolves. It's still both entertaining and terrible, and it's human nature to be fascinated.
Our movie is definitely also a thriller, and it's meant to take people on a journey and give them an experience. Feeling something is important, whether a film creates good or bad feelings. It’s about being moved by something, and I want to create movies that move people and make them feel. And yes, they can also be entertained. They can also gain awareness about something and at the same time be horrified. All these things are not exclusive — it's not a neither…nor. I find it attractive to strike that balance and to put people in these experiences where they feel both things.
Late Shift is in UK and Irish cinemas from Friday 1st August.
