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Bridgeport Film Fest
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Community Connections
Community Connections shines a light on local charities whose compassion, service, and dedication strengthen the fabric of our community. By sharing their stories, we hope to inspire others and help the spirit of giving spread throughout our towns.
Bridgeport Film Fest
An interview with Jason Coombs, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Bridgeport Film Fest.
How do you brighten our community?
Bridgeport Film Fest exists because we believe every community deserves to see its own stories told, celebrated, and shared with pride. Too often, outside narratives define how a city like Bridgeport is seen. We're working to change that. By creating a platform for local, diverse, and underrepresented filmmakers, we give our community the chance to pick up a camera, pen, paintbrush, or mic to share their truth and reshape the story of our city from the inside out.
Through free community screenings, hands-on workshops, panel discussions, and our screenplay competition, we open doors for aspiring storytellers who might not otherwise have access to the film industry. We're committed to lifting up voices that are too often overlooked, with an ongoing goal of showcasing at least 50% of our official selections from Black, Brown, and Indigenous filmmakers, and at least 50% from women filmmakers.
But beyond the screen, our festival brings people together. Community members sit side by side, sharing laughter, tears, and conversation. Local businesses gain visibility. Emerging artists connect with mentors and industry professionals who believe in their potential. For a weekend each fall, Bridgeport becomes a vibrant hub of creativity and connection, and that spirit carries forward long after the credits roll.
We brighten our community by reminding Bridgeport of its own brilliance, and by empowering residents to become the authors of their own story, on their own terms, for the whole world to see.
Who do you serve in our community?
Bridgeport Film Fest serves the people of Bridgeport first and foremost, a city rich in culture and creativity that has too often been overlooked or underestimated. We serve residents who deserve access to free or low-cost, high-quality arts programming right in their own backyard, without needing to travel to bigger cities to experience the power of film and storytelling.
We serve aspiring filmmakers, writers, and artists who may not have traditional access to the film industry, offering them a real platform through our screenings, screenplay competition, and workshops. We place special focus on lifting up local, diverse, and underrepresented voices, including Black, Brown, Indigenous, and women filmmakers, whose stories are vital to a full and honest picture of our city and our world.
We also serve our community's need to see itself reflected on screen, because representation matters. It's powerful for residents to see people who look like them portrayed with dignity, while also discovering stories from other cultures that open doors to empathy and understanding.
We serve students in a special way through our collaboration with Connecticut State Community College at Housatonic, offering free programming including our Science on Screen Lecture Series, sparking curiosity about both science and storytelling.
And we serve our broader community by creating a shared space where neighbors gather, celebrate, and see Bridgeport reflected with pride, through authentic stories told by the people who live them.
What are you most proud of?
We're most proud of what this festival has become, and where it began. Bridgeport Film Fest was born in 2021, in the middle of a global pandemic, when connection and creativity felt more essential than ever. What started as an idea rooted in hope has grown year after year into a true staple of our community, a festival that residents look forward to and see themselves reflected in through our programming.
We're also deeply proud of the diversity of our lineup. Over the last five years, we've screened films from more than 25 countries, bringing voices, languages, and perspectives from around the world right here to Bridgeport. That kind of global storytelling, sitting alongside deeply local narratives, is rare for a festival our size, and it reflects exactly who we are: a community that is curious, connected, and open to the world.
Watching both of these things grow together has been the greatest reward. We didn't just survive a difficult moment in history, we built something lasting out of it. And we didn't just create a festival, we created a gathering place where Bridgeport can see itself as part of a much larger, richer, global story of film and human experience.
That growth, from a pandemic-era idea to a six-year tradition rooted in global diversity and local pride, is what we carry with us into every future festival.
What was the spark that started your organization?
The spark came from Co-Founder and Executive Director Jason A. Coombs' own love story with film, and his love for Bridgeport. Originally from the city, Jason has always believed that storytelling has the power to change lives. Film and art can open our eyes to perspectives beyond our own, build empathy, and remind us of our shared humanity.
But Jason also grew up watching Bridgeport get painted in the media as something it isn't. The narratives he saw didn't reflect the city he knew: a place full of culture, creativity, resilience, and heart. That disconnect stayed with him, and eventually it became a calling to build something in true collaboration with the local community, not for it, but with it.
The nonprofit Groundwork Bridgeport helped lay the foundation for that very first festival in 2021, offering the support needed to turn an idea into reality. Since then, the nonprofit City Lights & Company/Bridgeport Art Trail has served as a steady fiduciary partner over the past five years, helping the festival grow into what it is today.
What is one of your future impact goals?
Looking ahead, one of our biggest impact goals is reaching full representation in our programming: at least 50% of our official selections from filmmakers of color and 50% from women filmmakers. Bridgeport is a community rich in diversity, and we want our screen to reflect that truth fully, ensuring every resident has the chance to see their story, culture, and experience represented with authenticity and pride.
We're also dreaming big when it comes to growth. The Klein Memorial Auditorium, our festival's home, seats 1,400 people, and it's a space that holds enormous potential for connection and celebration. Our goal is to fill that theater to capacity by our tenth anniversary in 2031, transforming Bridgeport Film Fest into not just a beloved community tradition, but a can't-miss cultural destination that draws people from across the region and beyond.
Together, these goals speak to who we are and where we're headed: a festival rooted in equity and representation, and ambitious about the scale of impact we can have on Bridgeport's cultural identity. Reaching full houses at the Klein while showcasing a truly diverse range of voices would mean we've built something that doesn't just reflect our community, but genuinely belongs to it, filling every seat with pride, curiosity, and connection.
How did you change a life?
Since our very first year, we've been intentional about weaving diverse programming throughout the festival, not siloed to the margins, but present in every block. We've also created themed blocks that spotlight specific communities, including female-identifying filmmakers, LGBTQ+ storytellers, and Black stories, giving those voices dedicated space to shine while their films are also woven throughout the broader lineup.
And even though we are diverse and a queer led film festival, We're not a queer film festival, and that's precisely the point: we're a festival where every kind of story belongs, and where inclusion isn't the exception, it's the standard. That commitment to being a safe, diverse, and affirming space has real impact, sometimes in ways we don't fully see until later.
One attendee, a transgender woman, first came to our festival in 2022. Over time, being part of a community that saw her, uplifted her, and never asked her to shrink or explain herself, gave her the safety she needed to begin her coming out journey. Last year, she returned to the festival as her most authentic self.
Moments like this remind us why representation matters so deeply. When people feel seen and unjudged, they find the courage to become fully themselves. That's the kind of change we hope to spark: not just on screen, but in the lives of the people who walk through our doors.
Who are your community partners?
Bridgeport Film Fest is built on collaboration, and we're proud of the community partners who have helped shape this festival from the very beginning. Our very first festival in 2021 was made possible with support from Groundwork Bridgeport, a nonprofit that helped lay part of the foundation early on. Since then, City Lights & Company/Bridgeport Art Trail has served as our fiduciary partner, providing the infrastructure and support that allows us to operate and grow each year.
We've also partnered with the Bridgeport Pride Center on programming that celebrates and uplifts LGBTQ+ voices, and we collaborate with Connecticut State Community College at Housatonic to bring free programming to students, including our Science on Screen Lecture Series. Alongside that, we've worked with Nest Arts Factory to incorporate spotlight screenings as part of the Bridgeport Art Trail event, bringing even more artistic energy and visibility into our city.
At the heart of it all, we believe in building as big a table as possible. Every partnership we form is rooted in a shared commitment to community, creativity, and connection, ensuring more hands are involved, more voices are included, and more seats are open for Bridgeport to show up fully as itself.
Local-Insta thanks Fairfield County Bank for making our Community Connections series possible!
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