Film with the feel of New Mexico

In honoring the filmmakers participating in the Las Cruces International Film Festival, Asiah Thomas-Mandlman set out to capture both the colors of New Mexico and the essence of a film set in designing the festival’s official poster.

“I wanted to capture the sky because we have amazing sunsets,” Thomas-Mandlman said. “I realized a lot of past artists had done a lot of skies, so I didn’t want to completely take that out. Instead, the color palette still has those sky tones.”

Thomas-Mandlman used that palette to reflect the feel of New Mexico, then paired it with a top-down, aerial view of a film set. The goal was to ground every element in the world of filmmaking and production.

“That was fun, and I think I wanted it to be kind of nuanced,” she said. “Even the size of the poster is movie-poster sized. It’s displayed vertically like a movie poster, and the top-down perspective feels cinematic. I wanted to play with shadows since filmmakers are so obsessed with lighting.”

One of the more intriguing aspects of the design is the people depicted on the canvas. Rather than assigning each figure a specific role, Thomas-Mandlman left their identities open to interpretation. The scene also reflects a reality she discovered while working on film sets.

“I wanted to show that a lot of filmmaking is standing around and waiting, because people think it’s fast-paced all the time,” she said. “It’s a lot of communicating, and standing, and waiting for the shot—sometimes for hours. Those moments are what this is portraying.”

Thomas-Mandlman said some viewers have asked whether the figures are based on specific people. Unlike artists who rely primarily on memory, she builds her work from a wide range of visual references.

“It’s kind of a mash-up,” she said. “It’s from many references—probably 20 different images, all combined into one. I’ve worked on film sets before, and I have a collection of images, so I’m pulling from those and others I’ve found.”

At first glance, the original artwork behind the poster might look like a painting. But Thomas-Mandlman said that assumption would be wrong.

“This is colored pencil,” she said. “Colored pencil actually has a lot of range, but it’s often seen as a kid’s medium. The orange isn’t colored pencil—that would have taken way too long. That’s chalk pastel in the background.”

For Thomas-Mandlman, the goal wasn’t a specific reaction so much as sparking curiosity. She hopes viewers take the time to look closely and imagine the stories unfolding within the scene.

“One thing I do regret is that at the reveal party, people didn’t get to look at it up close,” she said. “From far away, it can look like nothing. I want people to really zoom in and see what’s happening in the conversations in the image. If people ask questions about it, that’s all I can hope for with an art piece.”

What's she doing now?

Poster artist Asiah Thomas-Mandlman is a multi-talented creative. Her work on canvas—and as a jazz singer—was on full display at the Las Cruces International Film Festival poster reveal party. These days, she’s channeling that creative energy in another direction: the stage.

The Broadway comedy “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” offers a fast-paced, sharp-edged look at power, politics and the people working behind the scenes to hold it all together.

Written by Selina Fillinger, the play unfolds over a single chaotic day inside the White House. The president never appears on stage, but his presence looms large after an off-the-cuff remark sparks a potential public relations disaster. What follows is a whirlwind of damage control led by seven women working to contain the fallout before it spirals out of control.

Thomas-Mandlman said the play is not intended as a statement on the current state of politics in Washington, D.C., but she is enjoying the process of preparing for her role as one of those seven women—a White House reporter—in the production at the Santa Fe Playhouse, one of the oldest theaters in Santa Fe.

The ensemble includes the president’s chief of staff, press secretary, personal secretary, and others whose roles intersect as the crisis escalates. As they scramble to manage competing priorities, personal agendas and mounting complications, the production leans heavily into physical comedy while delivering pointed commentary on gender, leadership and the inner workings of government.

When it debuted on Broadway in 2022, the show featured a high-profile cast that included Vanessa Williams and Rachel Dratch, under the direction of Susan Stroman. “POTUS” places a comedic lens on modern leadership, highlighting both the chaos and competence that can exist behind closed doors.

Acting has been on Thomas-Mandlman’s radar since she appeared in “Rent” 10 years ago while at New Mexico State University. The four-week run of “POTUS” opens Saturday, March 21.

“We open in a couple of days, so we’re still in the everyone’s frantic and trying to make changes part of it,” Thomas-Mandlman said. “The storyline is hilarious. I really love comedies that point towards things that actually need to be addressed, but not in a finger-pointing kind of way. I’m having a good time.”

The stage may sit slightly outside Thomas-Mandlman’s comfort zone, but that’s part of the appeal.

“It’s really hard, but worth it,” she said. “I don’t know if acting is going to be the front runner (career wise), but I keep coming back and doing it, so it must be really interesting to me.”