Winter Hymns (2026)
Winter Hymns (2026)
Palliative care, some say, is a fancy term for “care that doesn’t cure.” A grim topic for a film? With Winter Hymns, Wisconsin writer-director Nathan Deming set out to find something inspirational in a situation that will confront many of us. Unless we’re fortunate to die suddenly, palliative care is our destiny.
Some filmmakers might have chosen to make a documentary out of the real issues dramatized by Winter Hymns. “I'm not a documentary filmmaker at all so I'll let somebody else do that,” Deming says. “I think there's a lot of power and truth in performance and writing and drama, and that's what we were after. I'm very inspired by Mike Leigh, who was the head of my film school (London Film School) and often his movies are often said they are like watching real life —but I still think it is very different than documentary. These are performances, and there are some certain points I'm trying to make in the film. I'll let people figure out what they are!”
Deming chose his subject after his physician father switched from family practice to palliative care in Eau Claire. “He often joked that people said ‘Sorry’ when they found out what he did,” Deming recalls. “But in reality, he never enjoyed practicing medicine more—and, generally speaking, it seems like many hospice and palliative care workers get the same sense of meaning and joy out of their work (although it can be extremely difficult). On one side I wanted to write a love letter to their resilience, patience and the care they provide.”
And on the other, he thought it was a fascinating scenario for a film. “A literal limbo, the characters caught between this life and the next, and we stuck in the room with them,” he continues. “Things are said in that room that aren't said anywhere else.”
One-Room Story
Winter Hymns takes place in that room, one room in Menomonee where Deming shot the film—“Which some people find strange until they watch the movie. Then they get it. It's a pressure cooker that builds throughout the day (as well as being a pretty metaphorical limbo space).”
Deming wanted events in that limbo space to play out as realistically as possible. “When I first started writing I did interview a lot of different palliative care workers—from physicians to chaplains to MAs. Of course, everything they gave me was just inspiration, nothing in the film is based on anybody real. But I wanted to understand their philosophies, and the kinds of situations they often face, and the toll it can take on them,” he explains.
The director enjoyed assembling a nearly all-Wisconsin cast for the staff, patients and their families who pass through that one room.
Wisconsin Cast
I thought it was an amazing chance to also explore Wisconsin in the room and the multitude of characters that pass through it. “I knew I wanted Colleen Madden (from American Players Theatre) for the lead or else I wouldn't make it - once she was in, that completely opened things up for me,” Deming says. He was also “super excited to add Tara Mallen (Ghostlight) and Flora Coker (a Theatre X legend from Milwaukee) as well as Ericka Kreutz (“Better Call Saul”), also a Milwaukee native. Winter Williams was also a huge find—not a Wisconsin native but a super talented and established actress who lives here now.”
He also recruited local nonfactors, including poet Peggy Trojan, making her acting debut at age 92, and Thaddeus Sykora, a volunteer firefighter and dairy farmhand who had never acted before. “They were both fantastic,” he says.
What’s the take-away for Winter Hymns? “It's sort of in the title, and once you see it, you'll get it,” Deming answers. “But beyond that, like my favorite films, I think it gives you plenty to think about and turn over afterwards. I really don't want to make something that evaporates on your way to the parking lot. So far, at every screening, we've seen such an interesting phenomenon—people will stay in the lobby of the theatre and keep talking for 20, 30 minutes. I think it's working!”
Winter Hymns screens 3 p.m. Saturday, June 20, at the Oriental Theatre. For tickets, visit mkefilm.org/winterhymns.
