Today I wanted to share with you this Trailer for an upcoming German/Austrian/Italian movie about Ötzi the Iceman.
The movie is going to be a revenge-Thriller where the main character Kelab (Ötzi) sets out to find the murderes of his family but ends up being the hunted one instead.

The movie was shot on location in South Tyrol and stars Jürgen Vogel. Now what is interesting is that the dialouge of the movie will be entirely in extinct Rhaetian - a reconstructed ancient alpine language.

What do you think? I for one can't wait to see this movie!

Today is the 300th birthday of Maria Theresa, one of the most famous Habsburg rulers and the only female one at that. While she is often referred to as "Empress of Austria" in pop culture this is actually incorrect, since the title "emperor of Austria" did not exist before 1804. Rather Maria Theresa was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and bore the title of roman Empress when her husband Franz Stefan was crowned Emperor in 1745.
At first her rule was less than secure. Her father - Emperor Karl VI - had decreed in 1713 that in case he should die without a male heir all of his territories should be handed over to his daughters - undivided. Sure enough in 1740 he died without a male heir and the 23 year old Maria Theresa took his place. Despite her late fathers ambitions she was not accepted by a lot of contemporary monarchs and the following "War of the Austrian Succession" involved most European Countries. As it ended 8 years later Maria Theresa had managed to cement her position as Archduchess, however she had also lost Silesia to the Prussians, which she was not able to regain in the subsequent Seven-Years War.


During her rule Maria Theresa established a lot of reforms in the spirit of the Enlightenment. 1749 she started with reforming administration and introduced among others the "Staatskanzlei" (State registry). Her reforms also included the military and lead to the creation of the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt which still exists today and is as such one of the oldest Military Academies in the world.
A second - still existing - school that traces its roots back to Maria Theresa is the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna which was established in 1754 as the "Oriental Academy" to train diplomats and representatives of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Furthermore Maria Theresa tried to improve the situation of farmers by reducing serfdom and a reform of the education system lead to the introduction of elementary schools which became mandatory for everyone. Reforms like the abolishment of torture also reflect the spirit of the enlightenment. All of this lead to modernization across the monarchy. Despite this Maria Theresa was not all that popular with her people while she lived and a certain idealization only followed with later generations.

Apart from all this she is probably most famous for her family relations. Her marriage policy had brought her the nickname the "mother in law of Europe" and with 16 children she had a lot of material to work with - ironically she had married her own husband out of love and only wore black after his death. Her most famous child was of course the ill-fated Marie Antoinette of France.
There are several movies about her live (from 1951 and 1980) and a new one was filmed in 2016 for her 300th birthday (the premier was last week and I missed it ... but they play it again today).

As the mother of Marie Antoinette she was also featured in several movies about her daughter including the Anime "Lady Oscar".

So anyway, happy Birthday!