To Kurtiss Hare, good films can be transformative — and not just for the viewer, but, just maybe, for a whole city.

Hare runs The Nightlight, a nonprofit cinema in Akron’s burgeoning Historic Arts District, a funky dynamic arts, culture and dining scene that is attracting a diverse crowd along a northern corridor in downtown.

Hare, 33, sees The Nightlight as something more than a great place to see a great movie.

“We are advancing cinema and community in tandem,” he said. “This ecosystem is pretty impressive for a downtown, but it’s just the beginning of something bigger. We want people from across Northeast Ohio to come and realize downtown Akron is cool.”

In addition to The Nightlight, that ecosystem brings together a jazz club, wine bar and several restaurants and retailers from Main Street to High Street just before the All-America Bridge, known to locals as the Y Bridge.

A Canton native, Hare stepped into his role as Nightlight executive director in September. He’s been with the organization since 2013 — when it was known as Akron Film+Pixel — starting as film programmer and communications officer, and later serving as program and operations director.

At the time of Hare’s appointment to executive director, his predecessor, Steve Felix, praised Hare’s impact on the young nonprofit.

“Kurtiss has been instrumental in establishing the high caliber of films at The Nightlight, and in making the venue run well behind the scenes,” Felix said at the time.

The Nightlight opened in July 2014, with funding from many local sources, including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the GAR Foundation, the Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation.

The nonprofit had an annual budget of $260,000 in 2015, according to Hare. It has drawn more than 20,000 moviegoers since it opened, with 16,000 of those attending in 2015.