APT stars lead the cast of ‘Winter Hymns’ at the 2026 Wisconsin Film Festival

Linda Falkenstein, Isthmus

Director Nathan Deming hails from Tomah, Wisconsin. He lives in L.A. now, but returns frequently to Wisconsin — to make films. Deming’s film February, which won a Golden Badger Award in the 2024 Wisconsin Film Festival, is part of a projected 12-month series of films based in Wisconsin. His latest, Winter Hymns, playing in this year’s festival on April 12 at the Bartell Theatre, is set in, and filmed in, Wisconsin, starring what Deming calls “an all Midwest/Wisconsin cast.”

The film is a meditative, unflinching look at a day in the life of a palliative care doctor — played with sensitivity and restraint by American Players Theatre veteran Colleen Madden. It’s set in a purposely un-named part of Wisconsin, in just one room — the doctor’s office — which becomes, Deming says, “sort of like limbo.”

Deming tells Isthmus he became interested in the topic of caring for those approaching death because his father, a family doctor, switched to palliative care late in his career. When Deming was younger, he remembers his family not wanting to talk about it, but now, as a filmmaker, he finds his father’s work strikes themes he finds interesting — “exploring people under the most intense situation possible.”

He wrote the film seven years ago and tried to assemble a production several times, but worried the film was “too experimental.” His filming of February in Wisconsin in the winter of 2022 was instrumental. Deming became involved with the group Action! Wisconsin, working to establish Film Wisconsin, a film tax incentive recently signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers as part of the 2025-2026 budget. That, along with February, led him to meet more Wisconsin-based crew members and actors — that helped get this production off the ground.

Deming acknowledges that Winter Hymns is “a hard movie to watch in a lot of ways, but hopefully edifying by the end. There is value in thinking about these things.”

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