Screening Room: Dances With Films Festival at Laemmle’s Sunset 5

The 13th annual Dances With Films Festival, which describes itself as the only film festival in the country “solely geared” to unknowns, boogies into Laemmle’s Sunset 5 on Thursday and continues through June 10. About 100 films, including features, shorts, documentaries and music videos from around the world will screen, with nearly three-quarters of the films having their world or West Coast premieres (www.danceswithfilms.com).

In retrospect

LACMA’s latest screening series, “Sympathy for the Devil: The Magick Cinema of Donald Cammell,” features the four films made by the Scottish director who began his career as a painter and illustrator, moved on to writing screenplays and then took up the director’s reins alongside Nicolas Roeg for 1970’s seminal “Performance.” However, Cammell subsequently struggled to get films made and committed suicide in 1996 at 62, a year after his “Wild Side” was taken out of his control, recut and sent off to cable.

The retrospective opens Friday with “Performance,” which was inspired by the exploits of the infamous East End mobsters Ronald and Reginald Kray. In it, James Fox plays a ruthless gangster who decides to hide out in the mansion of a hermetic, mystic hippie ( Mick Jagger). The film was rated X when released. Also screening Friday is 1987’s “White of the Eye,” a thriller starring David Keith and Cathy Moriarty.

The director’s cut of “Wild Side,” starring Christopher Walken and Anne Heche, is on tap for Saturday. Cammell’s wife and co-writer China Kong and editor Frank Mazzola (who appeared in “Rebel Without a Cause”) reconstructed the original edit and will appear at the event in conversation with critic F.X. Feeney. Rounding out the evening is the director’s spooky 1977 thriller “Demon Seed,” starring Julie Christie as an unhappy wife of a scientist. https://www.lacma.org

Italian-flavored

UCLA Film and TV Archive, Cinecitta Luce and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles have combined forces to present “Ferzan Ozpetek: A Retrospective,” a tribute to the Turkish-born director who makes films in Italy. The festival opens Friday at the Billy Wilder Theatre with his latest film, “Loose Cannons,” a comedy about provincial family life. Saturday’s offerings are 2001’s “His Secret Life” and 1999’s “Last Harem,” with 2007’s “Saturn in Opposition,” scheduled for Sunday. Ozpetek will attend all three days. His 2008 film, “A Perfect Day,” screens Tuesday at the Italian Cultural Institute. “Facing Windows,” from 2003, is set for the Wilder on Wednesday. The series continues through June 12. https://www.cinema.ucla.edu

susan.king@latimes.com