The story of how football legend Zlatan Ibrahimović alienated his most loyal fans in his home town of Malmö has long since become the stuff of urban legend. When Zlatan played for the local team at the start of his career, the fans regarded him as a demi-god. In short, they utterly adored him….or at least they did until he made the crass decision in 2019 to invest in rival Stockholm-based club, Hammarby. That was when the Malmö supporters began to vandalise his sculpture outside the stadium – and when someone cut off its lengthy nose.
The mystery of what happened to that nose became a bit like a Swedish version of The Maltese Falcon. Film journalists visiting the town’s Nordisk Panorama were told that if they went to certain bars and said the right things to the right people at the right time, they might just be allowed to see it. Media commentators would tell far-fetched anecdotes about where it might be hidden.
Now, a film gets to grips with the true story behind the defaced statue. Zlatan’s Nose, directed by Nils Toftenow, Mathias Rosberg and Olle Toftenow, premieres March 20 in the NORDIC:DOX section of CPH:DOX. The movie even has its very own Humphrey Bogart-like detective, a gumshoe from Gothenburg called Claes Ekman. He is hired by the filmmakers to investigate the whereabouts of the missing nose.
Nils describes himself as a fan both of the Malmö football team and, before the Hammarby disgrace, of its most famous player.
“Maybe he [Zlatan] didn’t realise he was so loved. Everybody protected him in Malmö. When he said stupid stuff in the media, everybody would go like ‘but no, it’s Zlatan.”
Then came the great betrayal and the people of Malmö turned against their former idol.
“Swedish television had commissioned us to make a short and quick production about this phenomenon with this nose,” Nils remembers the original intention to churn out a true crime doc for TV. “Zlatan’s nose is almost like a metaphor for searching for the meaning of life.”
After Claes turned up, the nature of their project quickly changed.
If you Google the name of the detective, you’ll find plenty about him. He’s a private investigator with three decades of experience, including stints as a heavily armed bodyguard for ambassadors.
“We had interviews with other detectives but none of them wanted to be in the film because they wanted to be private,” the co-director recalls. Claes had no such misgivings about going in front of the camera. “He was up for it – and he is a good detective in a way.”
When he met Claes for the first time, Nils immediately felt that the private eye looked just “like a movie star. OK, the camera will like this guy!”
They filmed with Claes for an initial four days – as far as the budget then secured would stretch. “We paid him for the work he did, as a detective.”
Like so many fictional PIs, Claes has a certain shabby pathos and charisma. Earlier in his life, he had been a successful businessman. That career had soured. Now, he was looking for adventure.
To the filmmakers’ surprise, Claes began to try to direct the documentary himself. “Of course, in the beginning, we were wondering what was going on…he was worried it was going to be a boring film and so he started to put some salt and pepper into it.”
In the end, the detective all but took over the movie. It became as much about him as it is about Zlatan and his missing nose. Claes invited a Ukrainian detective to join the investigation, adding new layers of conspiracy and confusion to events.
Nils freely admits he quickly succumbed to his subject’s Columbo-like charms. “I really started to like him during the process. He was so juvenile, young and inspired. Now, we have daily contact.”
In fact, the co-director likes Claes so much that he has invited the detective to preside over his wedding to his girlfriend. “Instead of having a priest, we were thinking about having Claes because he is such a great character.”
The search for the missing nose turned out to be tougher than Claes had originally envisaged. Early on, he doesn’t make much progress. The Malmö FC ultras are a little suspicious of him. Nils, though, suggests the detective, the film directors and the die-hard fans had far more in common than they first realised.
“I would say that they [the ultras], like everybody else – me as filmmaker, Claes as a detective – just want to give their lives some purpose. I think we are pretty similar…they are portrayed as these very dangerous people in the media but I’m not scared of them. I like what they are doing.”
This wasn’t an easy movie to pitch. SVT became concerned about the offbeat direction it was taking. “They were like ‘what is going on?’ We had to talk them over – and [eventually] they saw what we saw.”
This, the co-director explains, is a universal story about people trying to make sense of the world. “If people see it that way, then it will be a hit but if you only go to see traditional true crime, then you will be disappointed.”
Nils likens Claes the detective to a “Buddha” who doesn’t care about worldly matters. “He only cares about his books and his life – that it should be exciting. The world is so serious. Why not be playful for a second. This existence is so bizarre from the beginning so why not just have fun.”
Most of the shooting was done back in 2021. This has been a tough project to cut together (“it’s such a weird story.”) The filmmakers were able to draw on the expertise of leading Swedish editor Mikel Cee Karlsson who works at Platform Produktion and whose credits include Triangle of Sadness and Force Majeure. “He really brought the project together.”
Whatever the challenges, the co-director says he “loved every second” of making the film.
DR Sales is handling the international roll out of the film but Nils and his colleagues will handle the local theatrical distribution themselves through their own production company, Tally Ho Films. The Swedish premiere is on 25th April.
Having dealt with Zlatan’s nose, Nils and his colleagues are now busy editing their next project, Stripped, about a male stripper in the US.
Is the stripper like Claes the detective? “He’s a totally different character, but I can say he puts on a costume when gets up and performs, like we all do,” Nils signs off.
