GREENFIELD – Greenfield Community College (GCC) will host the inaugural Franklin County Intergenerational Film Festival on Nov. 14 to showcase and celebrate six short films created by teens and older adults during GCC’s Cyber-Senior Program.

The Cyber-Senior Program is a global initiative that began in 2015 to bridge the digital literacy gap some older adults face by having younger people provide volunteer technical assistance and education. At GCC, the program began in 2022 with 1-on-1 technical assistance sessions hosted at the Greenfield YMCA or the Greenfield Senior Center. In 2023, the service was expanded through a grant by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, along with funding from the Greenfield Senior Center.

Cyber-Senior Program and the associate dean of community engagement at GCC Judy Raper explained that a decision was made to have a culminating project to showcase the end of this year’s program and the progress that was made. Raper said the festival will not only showcase the short films, but will also demonstrate the bonds and friendships the teens and older adults have cultivated.

“If you come you will see the relationships that have developed as a result of this,” Raper said. She explained that the program was able to allow the teens to use their “native language” in technology to teach the older adults, who not only benefit from the tech education, but from the rapport and relationship that is built between them. Additionally, it’s a chance for the youth to branch out socially, and get to know someone.

“There’s a comfort [for youths] that grows ... and then the older adults are so appreciative that it just branches into them telling stories, and developing connections and relationships,” Raper said.

Raper explained the idea for the YouTube videos stemmed from the 2015 “Cyber-Senior” documentary that showcases a short film competition. This idea to make YouTube videos as the culminating project does not feature the competition element, but these videos showcase the older adult in some way, whether it’s their lives, hobbies or the relationship they’ve fostered with their youth counterpart.

Starting at the beginning of October, teams of six youths between the ages of 15 to 25 from GCC or Greenfield High School were paired with older adults in their 70s and 80s to create seven-minute short films for YouTube. The groups were up to the challenge, and local filmmaker and GCC alumni Julian Lowenthal provided assistance to the groups.

“One of the things I did before we started filming was just consult with each group to hear what their visions are, what their ideas are, and to not rein it in, but maximize their vision, just understanding that we have a month to do it,” Lowenthal said about his time helping the pairs create their films.

Donna Dusell has been part of the Cyber Senior program since it began, and she worked with Lowenthal to assist the groups in creating their videos. In reflecting on the videos, Dusell said that she saw how unique each video was.

“All of the videos are quite different, and I really appreciated the way people inserted themselves into it,” Dusell said. “Our two longest serving mentors, Olivia [Dow] and Jessica [Lenihan], really dug into their relationships that arose as a result.”

The films cover a variety of themes. One film by Christopher Pike focuses on the relationship Greenfield couple Mary and Al Sciano have as Al navigates Parkinson’s disease. Another short film by Olivia Dow focuses on the relationship she developed with her senior partner Havi Stander as part of the Cyber Senior program when Dow started volunteering her time. Jessica Lenihan took a similar approach with her senior partner Melissa Peroit by examining their relationship, and Peroit’s love of gardening.

When asked about the biggest challenge the pairs faced during the month-long process, Lowenthal said it was the amount of time allotted for pre-production, filming and editing. Despite the limited time available for creating the films, Lowenthal said he was pleased to see how each of the groups were able to overcome this.

“I was tremendously pleased and proud of each group being able to deal with that natural obstacle that they knew about from the beginning,” Lowenthal said.

Within this timeframe, Lowenthal was able to help the groups edit the final cuts of their videos and see how the knowledge the pairs gained from each other in the collaborative space culminated into the short films.

“I feel this program showed [that] we at any age have the capacity to learn new stuff,” Lowenthal said. “We also have the capacity to network with people that are very gifted in those particular areas, to either teach us directly or have them help out where their expertise are, and then the senior or storyteller can then utilize their expertise to collaborate and make a bigger piece.”

When reflecting on the project ahead of the film festival, Lowenthal has seen participants come away with several important takeaways, one of which is that both the kids and older adults feel accomplished in the work they did in such a short time frame. He thinks this pride will show through at the showcase.

“A lot of these people, they might have made a video here or there in their lifetime, but they never made a serious seven to 10 minute short[film]. I would say they all tremendously, not only felt accomplished, but proud,” Lowenthal said. “One of the things that I’m really excited to just see at the showcase is everyone realized, ‘Hey, we’re able to come together and make something beautiful.’”

The Franklin County Intergenerational Film Festival is free to all, and registration is available on the GCC website at https://tinyurl.com/wxc7rjra. The festival starts at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 at the GCC campus in the dining commons of the main building. A talk-back with the youth and older adult pairs will be held after the 45-minute screening of all six films.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.