There's a moment in Jochen Hick's new
thriller, No One Sleeps,
which receives its world premiere in the
Panorama, when his protagonist must face
his own mortality. He has put off opening
a rather official-looking envelope containing
the results of an AIDS test, but at the
end he has no choice. "He avoids facing
this like he has avoided facing so many
things until the end," says writer/director
Hick. "I wanted to make a more complex gay
movie that goes beyond typical gay themes."
The film concerns
a young AIDS researcher investigating a
conspiracy theory about the epidemic. He
becomes enmeshed with a serial murderer
whose killings parallel the murderous rampages
of the princess in Puccini's Turandot.
"It's
very hard to get television funding for
gay-themed films, especially when you're
not a well-known mainstream director," says
Hick. The film took six years to finance,
with ARTE coming in as a co-producer.
Hick
attended acting school in Leipzig and
then spent three years at a city theatre
in Dresden. "I quit my contract last summer
in order to freelance and do more TV and
movie work," he says. He is currently
featured on the TV series Tatort.
Could
he identify with the role? "I have friends
who are HIV positive. I know about the
problems they have and what they are going
through. Also, many things in life are
banal, and I am trying to demystify some
of these banalites in my film."
Owen
Levy
by
Jochen Hick