As the ground and trees return to their verdant hues, the warming of the weather is accompanied by a resumed vigor for outdoor activities – and for a few weeks at least, we renew our appreciation for the feeling of the sun’s rays on our faces.

That said, I decided to eschew that in the name of journalism, electing instead stay inside and watch movies.

This was no weekend Netflix-binge, however. In fact, I spent the past few days checking out the Kansas City International Film Festival. Held at the Cinemark on Country Club Plaza from April 10-14, the festival is a gathering place for film enthusiasts as well as both acclaimed and aspiring filmmakers.

Documentaries, narratives and short films covering a wide range of genre and subject were on display this time around, as well as seminars and press conferences by some of the presenters. The feature-length entries stood on their own, where as the shorts came in blocks, grouped together seemingly at random. In this case, some of them were actually produced by students from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

The hot-ticket item at the fest this year – one I was unfortunately unable to get into – was the screening of the locally-set drama, “All Creatures Here Below.” Led by Karen Gillian, best known for sci-fi work like “Doctor Who,” and Kansas native and screenwriter David Dastmalchian, an actor whose highest profile role thus far was in the Ant-Man sequel – part of an amorphous blob of cinema which he shares with his costar Gillian. The reception, from what I could gather, was stellar. Dastmalchian, for his part, gave a press conference which may be found for now on the Facebook page for the event.

Though I was unable to attend that, I resolved to see at least one documentary while I was there to make up for my loss. To that end, I was pleased to be able to attend a screening of “The Buffalo Hunt,” a feature by Philip Difiore which follows the intersection of tradition and bleak modernity on the which is described on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota.

The film, I must say, was both visceral and and beautiful – it follows the ritual killing and preparation of a buffalo by the Lakota people, who reflect candidly on a host of topics including Standing Rock, the meth epidemic and the mysterious disappearances of indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada. I highlight this piece in particular because I feel it is a good example of the sorts of things good documentary cinema should provide: a serious examination of a subject that balances a sense of artistry with one of honesty. Moreover, I believe the greater impetus for the purpose of film is revealed here: it is an opportunity for both celebration and critique of the subject, as is all great art.

It’s unfortunate that I was as constrained in my budget for this excursion as I was because, in truth, the Kansas City Film Festival is a wonderful, culturally-enriching event. Film, as an art form, is not merely a mode of escapism – it is a visual art which at its best suspends all other conditions around us, not to divert us away from them, but to allow the viewer to reflect on them and their representations.

In our era, which has seen Hollywood’s output become near-universally forgettable flops and franchise programming, the art form and the public are more in need of this sort of event than ever before.

On March 29 this year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, no stranger to controversy, dropped all pretenses of modern democratic norms when he called for a memorializing of the country’s military coup of 1964, in which the armed forces overthrew the constitutionally-legitimate president João Goulart and seized power for themselves.

For 21 years, a ruthless, right-wing military and a sycophant congress held the country in an iron grip. With the suspension of democracy came torture, secret police, state censorship and the supposed disappearance of hundreds of dissidents.

His desire to memorialize the tragedy may in part stem from his seeing something of himself in the takeover. Like the first president of the dictatorship, Castelo Branco, Bolsonaro is in large part only in office because of the politically-motivated imprisonment of Brazil’s previous – and incredibly popular – president, Lula da Silva.

In both instances, social democratic politicians whose political programs were in favor of the poor and oppressed were replaced, whether by the barrel of the gun or by bureaucracy, with an empowered right-wing motivated by little more than base contempt and greed.

Bolsonaro, for his part, has made his position on the dictatorship quite clear, in 2008 stating that “the only mistake of the dictatorship was torturing and not killing.”

If this is not enough to arouse concern in Americans, then perhaps this addition may help: the blood spilled in that coup is, like so much misery in Latin America, in part the responsibility of the United States. The coup of 1964 was just one of many instances in the 20th century wherein the U.S.’s commitment to fighting a cold war “for democracy” – read: American business dominance – led our nation to prop up a brutal, anti-democratic and fascist governments in Latin America. Brazil shares this history with Chile, Guatemala, Argentina and unfortunately numerous other Latin American nations in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Bolsonaro’s decision to memorialize the coup was not met without criticism, but whether the move is a popular one or not, unfortunately, does little to change the fact that the president of a major country will be celebrating a period of terror that the Brazilian people, for decades now, have tried to put behind them.

By even gesturing towards a sense of nostalgia for this dark part of his country’s history, Bolsonaro is solidifying his place among a class of international leaders today who are – let’s be frank here – fascists, or at the very least capture the support of such ilk. Call it Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Duterte, Orban, Erdogan or Trump if you like, the stench remains the same.

What is to be done when our governments memorialize brutality in the name of patriotism? The concepts are not unacquainted with our own country – the increasingly out of fashion Columbus Day immediately comes to mind. In that case, rather than continue to give the genociders who “discovered” the Americas further glory, today we recognize that particular world-historic event with more nuance – memorializing and giving credit to the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere who suffered, died and survived to keep their history alive in the face of ethnic and cultural extermination.

It’s no use to say “Columbus never should have come here,” he did and we live with the consequences of that. But a refusal to dwell on the tragedy of the past does not mean we need to accept the genociders’ terms in perpetuum.

A similar path will have to be taken here as well. Bolsonaro may declare today, tomorrow or the whole calendar year in memoriam of 1964 if he so likes. There is nothing in that arrangement which compels the Brazilian people, or their allies worldwide, to think even a positive thought towards the dictatorship of the past, or of his brand of “democracy” today.

The past is not something which we may sweep aside easily, to ignore the brutality of the past would be just as ahistoric and desecrating to the memory of all those who perished as it would be to take Bolsonaro’s position on the matter.

The nationalists and the bigots around the world are having a moment right now, but for Bolsonaro – who at this time holds an approval rating of about 30 percent – things aren’t looking so rosy. From here, it’s the job of the Brazilian people and their allies internationally to oppose this clown.

In closing, free Lula, get rid of Bolsonaro.

Based on the circumstances of the lawsuit by female watch-painters employed by the United States Radium Corporation against their employers in the  1920-1930s, the emotionally-gripping tragedy of “Radium Girls” was something of a return to form for Jewell Theatre Company (JTC), following the first semester’s pallid performance of “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Just in time for International Women’s Day, “Radium Girls” is a play that explores themes of poverty, class antagonisms, medicine and the role of women in each area.

Like gears in a wristwatch, each actor on stage performed their role seamlessly. A few performances especially stood out – namely those by students Terrace Wyatt Jr, Isaac Chizhik and Emma Mayfield.

Wyatt and Mayfield tirelessly carry a strong depiction of the relationship between exploiter and exploited –  Reeder (Wyatt) attempting to secure his standing and profit by any means, whilst in his extraction of profit from Grace’s (Mayfield) labor, he drains the very life from her as well.

Chizhik portrayed no fewer than four characters, giving each one a distinct style but always recognizably his own. The actor’s transition from one role to another in the final scene had this critic virtually fist-pumping at the change.

Director Chris McCoy sets these performances on the stage with a sort of “neo-Brechtian” flair, upon which no actor ever truly leaves. Named for the stylistic approach of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, one of the driving principles of Brechtian performance is its commitment to remain simply a play – the audience should not be so drawn into the spectacle that they forget it is only that.

At times, the stage setup heightened the anxiety of certain scenes, such as the opening of Act 2, in which a multitude encircle Mayfield to ask about potential settlement money. Sincere in questioning but taunting in their execution, this scene is one of many in which the sustained presence of the actors lends to the audience’s feeling that for the Radium Girls, it is as though the whole world is watching them.

The show was not without its issues, however. Take for example the chemistry between actors Mayfield and Jaimeson Satterfield. Perhaps it was a choice on the actors’ part – with regards to the direction their relationship goes – but their chilly regard for each other early on in the performance has the effect of leaving the audience uninterested from their first scene together.

Additionally, though this may be a problem with the script rather than its interpretation, the dream sequence of Act 2  seems very out of place – it feels completely without stakes. This is likely owing to a script which did not anticipate such a Brechtian interpretation to be applied.

In addition, the lights – which, up until the dream sequence were more realist – take on a surreal quality with the aid of blues and purples. Strangely for a show concerning radium, the dream sequence had very little green. About halfway to being eerie, this viewer was left wondering if it would have made more of an impression had there been traditional scene changes so as to allow for some defamiliarization with the set, rather than repeating the same again and again.

That said, great credit is due to lighting designer Joseph Duncan and the rest of the tech crew –  their design choices lent greatly to the at-times claustrophobic nature of the performance, even in the weaker areas of the show.

The projections, additionally, set the scene in a wonderful and gruesome manner. The limitations of academic theatre on JTC’s scale precludes any makeup from properly displaying the kind of medical horrors experienced by the Radium Girls, and so the images projected onto the wall during the pre-show communicate to the audience what the actors, through performance alone, cannot. The projections were useful during scene transitions as well –  as visual aids within a scene – and in performance’s ending, which figures as a celebration of some notable women in labor, science and the humanities who have followed in the Radium Girls’ footsteps.

The show’s premiere was timed to the recognition of International Women’s Day, something few today know was started by the women working in the St. Petersburg textile mills in 1917 – a group not unlike the protagonists of “Radium Girls” – indeed, it was originally founded as International Working Women’s Day. The characters’ struggles color our own today, and guarantees the show relevance – living as we are in a world where wealth inequality is soaring, medical costs are skyrocketing and work appears to be slowly killing all of us. This being the case, Jewell Theatre Company shows the audience to never give in, no matter how the public may feel about an “angry woman.”