There might be decades between primary school student Jack Clare and 89-year-old Dorothy Keswick but that hasn't stopped them starting up a firm friendship.
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The unlikely duo came together courtesy of a school filming project, which was officially launched at Warrawong's St Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary School on Wednesday.
Thirty students from the school, along with a handful from Corpus Christi Catholic High School, spent nearly two years working on the short film, Me You and Us, which aimed to capture the lives of residents in the nearby aged care village.
"When I go for my walks, all the ladies will call out 'Jack's here' and they come running over.''
Jack, 12, and Dorothy, who lives in the Multicultural Aged Care Village, became friends through the school's regular visits to the facility.
Dorothy, who turns 90 next month, said the pair had formed a "lovely bond".
"He's just a lovely boy, he's even letting me hang onto him today as I don't have my walker," she said.
"When I go for my walks, all the ladies will call out 'Jack's here' and they come running over; they all like to see him too. It's good to have that sort of interaction, it's been wonderful."
While filming may have finished, it hasn't stopped Jack from popping in to see his new buddy.
"I like going to see Dorothy, she's just a really lovely person to be around and to talk to," he said.
"It's almost like having another grandmother; we chat and play games together.
"If we hadn't done the film, we might never have met each other."
Students were involved in all aspects of the 30-minute production, including filming, recording sound and interviews.
The village's residents were interviewed about their childhood and offered advice to the budding filmmakers.
The project was part of The Smith Family's Partnership Brokers program, an initiative aimed at bringing community groups, businesses and schools together to improve school engagement.
Ann Green, from The Smith Family, said the project had changed the students' ideas about ageing.
"[When] the children had finished [the film], they had very different - and positive - ideas about aged care and older people from when they began," she said.
"We hope this experience plants a seed for these children that perhaps that's an area in which they might like to work when they grow up."
