No One Sleeps, written, directed, and produced by Jochen Hick, focuses on a theory regarding the origin of the HIV virus. Although most medical authorities believe that the HIV virus was originally found within monkeys in Africa and then transmitted by human contact, the link between monkey-handlers in Africa and the first diagnosed cases among Caucasian gays in Los Angeles has never been found. German medical student Stefan Hein (played by Tom Wlaschiha), the twentysomething son of a deceased medical researcher, arrives in San Francisco to investigate his East German father’s theory that the HIV virus originated in sheep and was transmitted to humans through a medical experiment by the U.S. Department of Defense on prisoners in Maryland who were later released for their role in the experiment; the researchers presumed the experiment failed, not realizing that the incubation rate for HIV to develop into AIDS could take many years. While jogging in Golden Gate Park one day, Hein encounters the dead body of Angelo Molina, whose murder is being investigated by homicide detective Louise Tolliver (played by Irit Levi). Molina has a red cross painted on him. Next, Hein makes a presentation of his research project at a half-day conference on AIDS at Golden Gate University, which accepted him to give a talk about his father’s theory, last presented at a San Francisco AIDS conference in 1989. At the end of the talk Hein discloses that he is in San Francisco to find some of the original participants in the experiment to test his theory. Skeptics in the audience through cold water on his theory, but neurologist Dr. Richard Burroughs (played by Richard Conti) tells Stefan that he finds the theory “interesting.” Stefan then tries to contact older HIV+ males to see if they were involved the experiment, going to an AIDS awareness center, an AIDS hospice, and a notorious kinky sex club where HIV-infected men are having unprotected sex. During his peregrinations, he runs into café waiter Jeffrey Russo (played by Jim Thalman) on several occasions, and the two ultimately have rough sex. Indeed, San Francisco’s kinky community tempts Hein to abandon safe-sex practices. On emerging from the sex club, Tolliver remarks, “With tits like that, no wonder you guys don’t need women.” Meanwhile, more dead bodies of HIV+ victims turn up murdered, grist for the mills of right-wing politicians who capitalize on the alleged depravity of the city in upcoming elections, and the paths of Hein and Tolliver cross several times, mostly on the latter’s initiative because she has now come to believe that the men are being killed to stop Hein from finding them first. One evening Hein breaks into Dr. Burroughs’s office to locate an original list of participants in the experiment, and indeed the names on the list match those who have recently been killed. Soon, Dr. Burroughs shows up dead, and two FBI officers arrest Hein. After getting the list from him, the FBI turns him over to Tolliver, who releases him. Now she believes that the FBI is responsible for the killings in order to cover up the link between the Maryland experiments and the origin of HIV. Clearly, the purpose of the film is to keep an alternative theory of the origin of HIV before the filmviewing public. Throughout the film, we hear the “Nessun Dorma” aria from Puccini’s Turandot, a favorite of Dr. Burroughs and others that presents an analogy for the medical experiments and for the dangers of searching for the truth, as the princess in the opera has the heads of her suitors removed when they fail to answer three puzzling questions. The film’s title is a permutation of the words “Nessun Dorma” (No one shall sleep!). MH