Ötzi is the nickname given to a natural mummy discovered by two German hikers in 1991. Found frozen in the Schnalstal Valley glacier, amid the Ötztal Alps between Northern Italy and Western Austria, the Copper Age man was preserved in ice, clothed in furs, and armed with a copper axe. Researchers identified some 60 tattoos on his skin, an undigested meal in his belly, a wound on his head, and an arrow in his back. Ötzi has been the subject of intense scientific research and debate, though the consensus is that he’s over 5,300 years old. How he came to be so high in the mountains and why he was killed remain sources of informed conjecture, though forensics into pollen and other traces of evidence have revealed his birthplace, the region where he hunted, and his diet. Some archeologists hypothesize he was a high-altitude shepherd; others wonder if he was attacked and fled to the mountains to die. German filmmaker Felix Randau dreams up a potential scenario with his 2017 feature Iceman, an immersive and entertaining act of cinematic speculation, albeit limited by its simplistic plotting.

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