Conversations Between Men

Story

Writer Kari Mairisaari has enjoyed success and tabloid fame with parodies and political satire. But his ninth novel will not come: he has lost sight of why he writes, and his private life offers no stability either. Ahead lies a book that cannot be written sitting in bars.

Mairisaari sets off on new paths where his research hurts, physically as well as mentally. What does a young man feel after taking another person’s life? People who lived through the war in the Balkans, and their stories, take the writer abroad. When his trusted editor Koivikko falls seriously ill, he needs understanding from old friends and new ones alike.

Conversations Between Men is about the challenges of making art, about encounters and friendship. The film swerves from the football pitch, the bar and the writer’s den into distant worlds, and with a good dose of humour it dares to face guilt and atonement.