Victoria – a feature film in one take
With Victoria, German film director Sebastian Schipper has made a film that lasts 140 minutes without a single cut.
One woman, one night, one take: Victoria, the realtime drama by Sebastian Schipper, is currently causing a stir in the German film scene. The entire 140-minute feature film was made without a single cut – a bold cinematic experiment that flouts accepted film conventions.
Reviewers have been ecstatic about this rather different Berlin film. It tells the story of the young Spanish woman Victoria (Laia Costa) who meets four young male Berliners with whom she roams through the city at night. However, what begins as a great romantic adventure with the promise of freedom and eternity soon turns into a nightmare. It transpires that Sonne (Frederick Lau), Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit) and Fuss (Max Mauff) have a score to settle and Victoria teams up with them.
Strong emotional pull
The actors change settings 22 times during the early morning hours in nighttime Berlin: club, skyscraper roof, café, car, underground car park, street, hotel suite. It took three runthroughs before Sebastian Schipper’s team were able to get the right “take” for Victoria in the can between 4:30 and 7:00 am on 27 April 2014. Cameraman Sturla Brandth Grøvlen won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival because of the way he followed the five actors through Berlin so directly and so unobtrusively that the audience becomes part of the action. Victoria is more than just a technical and logistical masterpiece: the nighttime story that is simultaneously a romance, thriller and intense city portrait has intense energy and develops a strong emotional pull.
Despite the action-packed plot, the screenplay for Victoria is only twelve pages long. The actors developed all the dialogues during a three-month rehearsal period and then improvised during filming.
At the 2015 German Film Awards, Victoria scooped up six of the sought-after Lola prizes – for Best Feature Film, Best Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Film Music. The leading actors Laia Costa and Frederick Lau also received Lolas for their performances. Its seven nominations meant that Victoria was already the major favourite in the runup to the most important German awards for filmmakers.
