Melbourne International Film Festival 2025: Late Shift

 

“There’s only two of us on tonight.”

Stressful, intense and poignant, Late Shift follows in near-realtime the frenetic reality of being a nurse, in a multitasking and masterfully crafted snapshot of one understaffed shift, with a phenomenal Leonie Benesch oscillating between a diverse array of patients under her care.

Discussion Points:

Nursing is a stressful job. Overworked, understaffed, poorly paid. And yet so many of our lives are affected by and feature points where we interact with them. If anyone is friends with a nurse or been treated by one, you know just how many things they have to mentally juggle and multitask. Late Shift captures the stressful, high intensity, emotionally draining reality of nursing, whilst also keeping the humanity of those who care at its core. Leonie Benesch delivers a phenomenal performance as she oscillates from professional to personal, stressed and stern to sweet and gentle. As she interacts with the various patients and their families in her wing of a hospital ward, we are given short glimpses into the ever moving reality of nursing. Masterfully shot and almost all playing out in real time, the film is impeccably paced. Feeling so much longer than 90 minutes as it packs each moment with frenetic energy, and yet never feeling like it’s running longer than 90 minutes or dragging along. The films uneasy score mimics a heart rate monitor complete with sharp flatlining tones and pulse pounding moments. But amidst the chaos, there’s quiet moments of humanity and care as patients and family face mortality and console each other. It’s a film full of emotional gut punches, anxiety inducing stressful scenarios and frenetic feelings of both hope and despair, in a deeply human and empathetic work that strongly advocates for more nursing supports by showing how poor off we’d be without them.