For 17 years, the Venice Film Festival has presented new, vintage, rare, and in progress works of documentary and poetical cinema — but the undertaking’s central inspiration enjoyed an even longer history in the community. Once the site of the original Beatnik hotspot Venice West Cafe, which hosted icons of Californian and global counterculture from 1958-66, 7 Dudley Ave. went on to a gloriously eccentric second act as the home of Sponto Gallery, a hub of community arts, gatherings, shenanigans and total freedom of the most progressive and hilarious kind for another 24 years. VFF is dedicated to this legacy of love as much as it is to ongoing support of telling Venice stories.

Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice; Sun., Jan. 26, 7-10 p.m.; free. facebook.com/BBLitArts/events. 

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