*Oscar Shortlisted - Late Shift - Director Petra Volpe
Director Petra Volpe’s LATE SHIFT had its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2025. It went on to become Switzerland’s entry for the 2026 Best International Feature Academy Award® and was short-listed for that nomination. It won the Golden Eye Award from the Zurich Film Festival, The German Camera Award for Judith Kaufmann’s Cinematography, and Leonie Benesch was nominated for Best Actress at the European Film Awards. LATE SHIFT, follows a dedicated nurse Floria (Leonie Benesch, “The Teachers’ Lounge”, “September 5”) as she navigates the relentless pace of her hospital’s understaffed surgical ward with humanity and warmth. As her overnight shift intensifies, she is pushed to the brink in a race against time. Every second counts, and every interruption could mean the difference between life and death. Our guest, Director and writer Petra Volpe (“The Divine Order”) skillfully uses real-time tension to examine the emotional cost of frontline care work and the quiet, unglamorous triumph of keeping people alive in a pitiless system. LATE SHIFT is a portrait of everyday courage, both an homage to nurses and a rousing call to address the global staffing shortage in the industry.
About the filmmaker - Screenwriter and director Petra Volpe studied at the Konrad Wolf Film University in Potsdam‑Babelsberg. Her feature film debut, Dreamland (Traumland, 2014), was nominated for four Swiss Film Awards. In 2017 Volpe gained worldwide attention with her film The Divine Order (Die göttliche Ordnung). The film became a major box office success in Switzerland. It was sold to over 30 countries and represented Switzerland in the Oscar race. Petra Volpe also wrote the screenplay for the film Heidi, the successful SRF series Labyrinth of Peace and Golden Years (Die goldenen Jahre), which became the most successful Swiss feature film of 2022 in German‑speaking Switzerland and was sold internationally, including in the USA. In addition to her Swiss projects, Volpe works as a screenwriter and director in the United States. She is currently working on her fourth feature film, Frank & Louis. Petra Volpe lives and works in Berlin and New York. In Germany she is represented by DIE AGENTEN and in the US by Range Media Partners.
