Nathan Deming spent seven years bringing Winter Hymns to life — and the Wisconsin filmmaker says the subject matter is one most people would rather avoid.
"I'm here to bring the mood down," Deming said.
But audiences across the Midwest are staying long after the credits roll.
Winter Hymns follows a single palliative care doctor through one day, in one room of a Wisconsin hospital. The doctor, played by APT's Colleen Madden, meets with a series of terminally ill patients and their families over the course of the film. The cast is made up entirely of Wisconsin actors.
For those unfamiliar with the term, Deming offered a straightforward explanation.
"Palliative basically means care without a cure," Deming said. "It's kind of a growing part of the hospital to help people with end of life decisions, and or if you just have a very serious illness."
Watch: Wisconsin film explores life, death, and palliative care through Midwest lens
The film is not a documentary. Viewers spend time with about 9 different patients, each facing death in their own way — shaped by different beliefs, backgrounds, and circumstances.
"I wanted to mainly just showcase things," Deming said. "We spend time with about nine different patients over the course of the movie, they're all going through different things, they're all facing death differently. Some of them are different religions, and I, through my research and planning and writing the film, it was really interesting to just see how many varieties of death there are, just like how many varieties of life."
The idea came from a personal place. Deming's father became a palliative care doctor late in his career, and the experience changed how Deming thought about end-of-life work.
"I kind of like most people, I heard about hospice and palliative care, and I was like, I don't want to hear about that, that's very grim," Deming said. "But I realized very quickly that my dad got like a really strong sense of meaning and purpose from it, and there's like kind of a strange beauty to the work."
Deming said the film fits into a broader goal he has as a filmmaker — capturing authentic Wisconsin stories.
"In my films, part of what I like to do is I really want to capture an authentic part of Wisconsin," Deming said. "I thought, what an interesting world to explore, you know, like people are going through the worst moments of their lives, they're trying to figure it all out, and just immediately I was like, this is a great place to set a film."
The response has surprised even Deming. At screenings across Wisconsin and beyond, audiences have not been rushing for the exits.
"All the screenings I've been to across Wisconsin, and we started screening outside the state too, people will linger in the lobby for like 20 or 30 minutes afterwards, like talking," Deming said.
That reaction started even before the film was finished. During the casting and rehearsal process, actors opened up in ways Deming did not expect.
"They'd want to tell me a story of when their dad went through hospice or their aunt went through palliative care," Deming said. "So immediately I was like, I think this might resonate with people."
Winter Hymns had a successful debut at the Wisconsin Film Festival and is now screening across the Midwest.
A special screening will be held this Saturday at the Oriental Theater, beginning at 3 p.m. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Deming and the cast.
TMJ4 learned about this event through our partnership with Imagine MKE.
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