Films join a jam-packed itinerary at West End.

Music, art, poetry and fashion will get plenty of attention at the West End Celebration, but this year sees a big return of film at two venues that host four screenings.

Mark Baer, former executive director of the Museum of Monterey and spoken word poet (as alter ego Joe Cupcake), brings a multimedia project to The Independent, opening 5-7pm Friday and running all day Saturday and Sunday.

“The aspiration is to create a totally immersive art installation, walls, ceilings, floor – think Yayoi Kusama,” Baer describes in an email.

He’s screening a nearly six-hour serial video called The Dance of the Little Bells, on multiple screens, with original music by Frank Zappa bassist Arthur Barrow. His paintings were created during the 2016 election cycle, plotted like “a late 1930s road movie set in the near future.”

At the Carol Building, three film projects cycle all day Saturday and Sunday.

Robert Pacelli is showing his 30-minute documentary Face of a Dreamer, about Pacific Grove-based assemblage artist and bonsai horticulturist Ray Magsalay.

There are abrupt editing cuts, and the music track suddenly switches too, going from down-homey fiddle music to spooky abstract soundscapes. But it works with an accidental providence.

In his rural twang, Magsalay says about his passions: “I’m sort of monkey mind. I can work on [bonsai], then switch over and work on my sculpture.”

Jeff Sax’s Cannery Row Revisited – The Evolution of Mack and the Boys is a 40-minute documentary about a band of modern-day homeless men with names like Dumpster Dan, Jimbo, Carl the Wizard, Buddy, Guitar Mike. There is charm and pathos in this one.

After an interlude of a guitar strumming “Wish You Were Here,” one such homeless man tells us about the others.

“These are the Cannery Row Boys,” he says in a gruff voice. “Alan is quite the enigma. We call him One Eyed Alan… He’s a very tenacious man and a very serious drinker. He’s been known to fall down quite a bit… But just as sweet as can be.”

There is a block of 24 short films from CSU Monterey Bay’s Cinematic Arts Department students, playing on loop, running the gamut of animation, comedy, drama, slice-of-life, documentary, narrative, experimental and fantasy.

“Eomma” is an experimental animation by Lizzy Bradley about a mother/daughter relationship as heard through phone messages. “Suraj” by Marissa Shankar, inspired by true events, tells a story of secret lives and Hindu tradition.

Immersion is part the West End experience. But if you want respite, or to re-orient your synapses, these films are portals to other worlds.

WEST END CELEBRATION films are 5-7pm Friday, 11am-6pm Saturday, 11am-5pm Sunday, Aug. 17-19, in Sand City. Free. westendcelebration.com