Los Alamos filmmakers release second Jemez murder mystery episode

Los Alamos filmmakers brought their second Jemez murder mystery episode to the SALA Event Center on Friday at 5 p.m., turning a local screening into a community-made sequel with a hometown cast, Jemez Mountains settings and a story that was shaped by audience reaction to the first film.

Invisible Hand Entertainment’s Jemez: The Investigation is the next chapter in a planned four-episode series that began with Jemez: A Murder Mystery, which premiered at SALA on Oct. 24, 2025. The first installment followed a camping trip in the Jemez Mountains that ended in murder and left the killer unidentified, and the new episode is built to answer more of the mystery while extending the broader arc.

The production is unusually Los Alamos-specific. Invisible Hand Entertainment has been described as a Los Alamos-based creative collective that works in film, audio and video production, website design and photography. The sequel was written, directed, filmed and acted by people from the area, including Jon Ebanks, Jaime Romero, Roger Anaya, Marcus Rivas, Savannah Michalski, Jaziel Felix, Emilo Rivas, Katherine Romero and Ariel Rivas. Ebanks has said Los Alamos is his home, and premiering work here matters to him.

That local connection is also part of the format. Ebanks said the series is interactive, and the audience response to the first film fed directly into the writing and concept for Episode Two. Viewers previously voted on who they thought the killer was, and the production team used those reactions as part of its planning. At SALA, that gave the premiere more than a standard movie-night feel: it functioned as a shared reveal for people who had already helped steer the story.

Filming for the second episode began in January and wrapped in March, with production taking place in the Jemez Mountains and in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The landscape is part of the appeal, tying the mystery to the places northern New Mexico residents know by name rather than to a generic backdrop.

SALA itself has become a natural home for that kind of project. The venue, set in the historic Reel Deal Theater space, has been described as a reimagined cultural center that hosts films, live performances, special events, virtual reality experiences and community forums. For a locally made mystery like Jemez: The Investigation, the building and the movie fit the same idea: culture made close to home and shared in public.

Invisible Hand Entertainment was created in 2020, and in May 2026 the company was among ten New Mexico businesses awarded $25,000 in creative-industry grant funding. The money was set aside for production equipment, stronger digital systems, expanded mobile creative services and more community art events, a sign that the Jemez series is part of a larger push to build New Mexico’s creative economy from the ground up.