“Hey, mom” is a short film that follows Najma, a socially anxious college student who is heavily dependent on her mother, as she navigates a new life stage. We see throughout the film her challenges of developing authentic connections while also learning how to cope with losing the person most important to her. A minority in more ways than one, she finally begins to find kinship and safety with a couple new friends, but does not want to reveal her secret to them - she has built her mom into an AI. When her friends discover her secret and she realizes she doesn't have access to the AI, she panics; until she finds a handwritten note from her mother. The project is an alternate version of a coming of age story that asks the viewer to consider what grief, loss, and coping look like in the modern, rapidly developing, information age.