/elmachito: About

- Sports Drama

Logline:

A retired English soccer star isn’t adjusting well to his new life as a scout until he encounters an extraordinary Peruvian soccer talent whose temper just might end his career.

Synopsis:

Ray Marshall, an ex English soccer player, isn’t adjusting well to his new life as a talent scout. Ray battles a divorce, a drinking problem, and is in a fight to save his job since his boss decided to send him to Peru on an impossible mission to draft a hot soccer talent. But Ray’s outlook begins to change when he discovers a young player that calls himself “El Machito” and who is about to be kicked off his team because of his recklessness, temper and attitude. Machito’s drive reminds Ray of somebody he used to know: himself. And Ray does something he hasn’t done in a very long time: he takes a chance. Ray and Machito will butt heads all the way, but despite how much they seem to despise each other, they will realize how much their futures lay in each other hands.

*Participant in 2005 Tribeca All Access Connects*

View visual research presentation

/roby: About

Based on a short story by Edmundo Paz Soldán

-A dark coming-of-age/psychological thriller

Logline:

Roby, 13 and a budding detective, thinks he knows who committed a brutal murder in his neighborhood. He decides to investigate on his own and gets in way over his head.

Synopsis:

Roby, 13, has spent his summer vacation reading every single detective novel he could lay his hands on, but just as summer is coming to an end, a real mystery develops in plain view from his apartment block window. There’s been a gruesome murder in the edge of his apartment complex and he’s the only one who has a clue to the identity of the killer - Seth, 17, the local bad boy outcast. All Roby has to do now is prove it. Roby has waited all of his short life for this. It’s his first case.

Roby goes undercover and gets close to Seth in hopes of more information, but no sooner has he embarked on his mission that it begins to escape from his control. Seth is a savvy manipulator, and the deeper Roby digs, the more he gets sucked into Seth’s world of crime and depravity. To get any closer and have any chance of solving his case, Roby will have to let himself fall into Seth’s spell. He will have to become the killer’s apprentice.

But Roby goes too far. The investigation is soon a distant memory and he and Seth become inseparable allies: two outcasts rebelling against society. When Roby finally opens his eyes he finds himself in a complete nightmare. But to right the wrongs he’s been a part of he will have to finish the job he started, and do what he once would have considered unthinkable. This will be the summer that Roby will remember his whole life. The one he will wish he could forget.

View Presentation

/thestoryofluke: About

- A coming-of-age/Comedy

Logline:

Sheltered his whole life by his grandparents, Luke, a young man with autism, is suddenly thrust into a world that doesn’t expect anything from him. But Luke is on a quest for a job and true love, and he isn’t taking no for an answer.

Synopsis:

Luke, 23, is autistic and has lived a sheltered life with his grandparents since his mother abandoned him when he was 4. His world is suddenly turned upside down when his grandmother dies and both he and his senile grandfather are forced to go live with Luke’s uncle’s dysfunctional family. They have no patience with Luke or his grandfather and quickly put the old man in a nursing home. Luke is left with his grandfather’s final semi-coherent words: “Get out of the house more. Find a girl. Get a life!” For the first time Luke has a mission. He looks at his new family having a life around him and resolves to follow his grandfather’s words. He decides the first thing he needs to do in order to be like everybody else is to get a job.

Luke’s mission brings him in direct conflict with his uncle’s family. But little by little, instead of tearing the family apart, Luke starts to bring out the best in them. He gets his chance at a job through a supported employment program for people with disabilities and ends up as an office assistant at an internet marketing company where he meets Zack, an I.T. specialist with his own social disorder and who truly hates everybody, including Luke. But Zack holds the key that Luke needs to complete his mission: through his research of “neurologically typical” humans, Zack once pretended to be “like everybody else” and once even dated a “normal” girl. This is just what Luke needs since he has just fallen in love and needs Zack’s help to become “normal”. This is easier said than done and Luke’s journey is really about to begin.

*Participant in 2007 Film Independent’s Directors Lab*

View Presentation

IMDbPro Profile

/junkboxfiction: About

There’s a lot of waste in the creation of fiction: story-lines that dead end, characters that don’t fit, dialogues with no home. Junk. Most of the time it’s best to leave these bastard junk-children for dead but every once in a while one peeks it’s head out, begging for a second chance.

Whenever this happened I use to take the wooden bat that I kept by my computer at all times (just for these moments) and hit the bastard as hard as I could as I screamed: “The story is better off without you and I’m better off without you! Leave me alone! Ahhggg!”

But recently these long forgotten bastard junk-children started piling up in my head. They began talking to each other, finding common hobbies, watching youtube and having unprotected sex at an alarming rate. Soon an army of them and their offspring was gnawing noisily at my brain.

Junkbox fiction is my way of purging these voices into short works about the size of this text, give or take. Here they don’t have to overact aimlessly to get my attention or pretend to be something they’re not to fit in the bigger picture. Here they get their own little stage.

I hope the voices appreciate the effort.

Sincerely,

The Writer.

/vivalacausa: About

A Southern Poverty Law Center Teaching Tolerance Film

*Shortlisted for 2008 Academy Awards - Documentary Short Subject*

39’59”, HD, 2008 (USA)

Mistreated and exploited for decades, a small group of poor and powerless California farm workers led by Cesar Chavez, risk everything when they launch a strike and national boycott against the multimillion-dollar California grape industry. In doing so, they create a national movement to support them in their fight for dignity and justice.

Directed by Alonso Mayo and Bill Brummel
Written and Produced by Bill Brummel
Supervising Producer, Olga Arana
Cinematography by Michael Pessah
Production Design by Jack Taylor
Edited by Dan Wolfmeyer

Narrated by George Lopez

Links:

Teaching Tolerance, A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center

IMDb

/justlikeanyone: About

5 Stories from the Ann Sullivan Center of Peru

43’30”, HD, 2007 (Peru)

“Just like Anyone” gives us a glimpse into the lives of 5 families that are doing their best to help their sons succeed, even though they are faced with severe developmental disabilities. It explores the journey that all these families have been through to accept their sons as who they are, and then begin to work as a family, and in cooperation with their school – The Ann Sullivan Center of Peru - to help them reach ever increasing goals.

Directed, Photographed and Edited by Alonso Mayo
Music by Willow Williamson

Links:

“Just Like Anyone” is available for purchase from Amazon.com

The Ann Sullivan Center of Peru

IMDb

/stefansgreencard: About

An Aquafina New Year’s Resolution Short Film

Comedy, 2’00”, 35mm, 2006 (USA)

Lucia has a secret crush on her foreign neighbor, but his visa is about to expire and so is her time to declare her love.

Written, Directed and Edited by Alonso F. Mayo
Produced by Nina Leidersdorff
Cinematography by Petra Korner
Production Design by Julie Byon
Music by Willow Williamson

Starring Carmen Perez, Ernst Gossner & Kristen Olson

Links:

IMDb

/keeperofthepast: About

An American Film Institute Thesis Film

Thriller, 17’59”, HD, 2005 (USA)

Stanley is a computer expert hired by political campaigns to manipulate images and create scandals on opposing candidates. He is the best at what he does and his manipulations often become the accepted truth. But there is one past he cannot alter: his own. Stanley once did the unthinkable for love and in doing so lost Deborah, his life long obsession. Now she is back in his life to play his game and fulfill her dreams of revenge. Stanley has finally found his match, the keeper of his past.

Written and Directed by Alonso Mayo
Based on a short story by Edmundo Paz-Soldán
Produced by Filippos Marinakis
Cinematography by Zoltán Honti
Edited by Wilson Tai
Original Score by Andy Dragazis

Starring Adam Rodriguez, Steven Bauer, Robin Paul, Katherine Hawkes & Brent Florence

Film Festivals: HDFEST 2005, LA Shorts Fest, Arizona International Film Festival, Worldfest Houston Film Festival, River Run Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival.

Links:

IMDb

/anyone: About

Produced for Esquire 2004 Celluloid Style Film Competition

* West Coast Finalist *

Drama, 7’55”, 2004 (USA)

Jason Drake is a journalist on a mission to uncover the identity of a man captured in an infamous 9/11 photograph. The “Falling Man” was striking for it’s unusual grace and symmetry, but at the same time haunting for it’s portrayal of the ultimate choice that many WTC employees took when faced with certain death. Jason thinks he knows who the Falling Man is and now he must confront the man’s family.

Written, Directed and Edited by Alonso F. Mayo

Based on the Esquire Article “The Falling Man” by Tom Junod

Produced by Nina Leidersdorff and Melcher Fabi

Cinematography by Jason Blount

Production Design by Julie Byon

Music by Christina Agamanolis, Marianna Bernoski & Willow Williamson

Starring Ian Hannin, Marlene Forté, Carmen Perez and Alyssa Diaz

Links:

IMDb

/wednesdayafternoon: About

An American Film Institute Thesis Film

* Winner of 2005 Student Academy Award *

Drama, 24’38”, 35mm-Scope, 2004 (USA)

There is no right or wrong in the world that Miguel, an East L.A. teenager, and his father live in, only choices. One’s an American, the other an immigrant, and though they are father and son, they are separated by a culture that threatens to tear them apart. This Wednesday afternoon Miguel must make a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. He will be put in a situation no son should be in. His father made tough choices in pursuit of the American dream, now it’s Miguel’s turn.

Written and Directed by Alonso Mayo
Based on a short story by Edmundo Paz-Soldán
Produced by Beverley Gordon
Cinematography by Paula Huidobro
Production Design by Laura Paddock
Edited by John Sitter
Original Score by Christina Agamanolis, Marianna Bernoski & Willow Williamson

Starring Jeff Licon and Jose Yenque.

Film Festivals (Partial List): Deauville Festival of American Film, The London Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, Camerimage Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, L.A. Shorts Fest, Angelus Awards Student Film Festival, Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, New York Latino Film Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival.

Television: Showtime Networks, SiTV, Canal+, Cinemax.

Links:

IMDb