Alonso Mayo is a graduate of the Film Directing program at the American Film Institute. He did his undergraduate studies in Journalism and Film at the University of Lima, Peru. Mayo grew up traveling back and forth between Peru and Lawrence, Kansas, spending 6 months in each country. After college in Peru, he founded Manzana Azul, a digital video production company that specialized in documentaries and institutional videos. He also wrote and directed the short film Silencio (2002), which participated in many Film Festivals around the world, won the Robert Altman prize in the Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee, and got him into AFI.

During his first year at AFI, Mayo wrote Wednesday Afternoon, a screenplay based on a short story by Bolivian novelist Edmundo Paz-Soldan. Completed in 2004, the film featured Jeff Licon (Mysterious Skin) and Jose Yenque (Traffic). It was official selection of Deauville Festival of American Film, London Film Festival, Cleveland Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, among many others. It has screened on Showtime Networks, Cinemax Latin, SiTV and Canal+. Wednesday Afternoon received a DGA Student Award and won the Gold Medal in the Narrative Category of the 2005 Student Academy Awards.

Mayo completed a second AFI thesis film, the thriller Keeper of the Past, which featured Adam Rodriguez (CSI:Miami) and Steven Bauer (Scarface). Mayo’s independent short film Anyone was a finalist in Esquire Magazine’s Celluloid Style Film Competition. He participated in the 2005 Tribeca All Access Connects program with his original soccer drama El Machito. He participated in the 2007 Film Independent Directors Lab with his original coming-of-age drama The Story of Luke. In 2007, Alonso directed the documentary on developmental disabilities Just Like Anyone, and in 2008, he directed Viva La Causa, a study of the early days of Cesar Chavez’s farm worker movement, which was shortlisted for the Documentary Short Subject Academy Award. Alonso’s latest screenplay is Roby, a thriller.