Alma Media Lab Launches with 'House of the Spirits' Showrunners at Helm
Chilean showrunners Francisca Alegria and Fernanda Urrejola, known for Prime Video's 'The House of the Spirits,' are leading the initial projects of Alma Media Lab, a Miami-based company that develops books and series together. The company has signed Latin American authors including Alfaguara Prize winner Carla Guelfenbein and Colombian jurist Federico Arellano.
Alma Media Lab operates from Miami with a development model that pairs book projects with television series from inception, drawing inspiration from production houses like Hello Sunshine and Alloy Entertainment. Its target audience spans U.S. Hispanic viewers and Latin American markets, positioning the company at the intersection of publishing and streaming entertainment.
The company's initial author roster includes Carla Guelfenbein, a Chilean novelist who received the Alfaguara Prize, and Federico Arellano, a Colombian law professor whose writing addresses the 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203, an attack historically attributed to Pablo Escobar. Both showrunners previously collaborated on Prime Video's adaptation of Isabel Allende's novel.
This publishing-to-screen model could reshape how Latin American stories reach global audiences, potentially giving authors greater creative control over adaptations while accelerating the pipeline from page to screen. It may also strengthen representation of U.S. Hispanic and Latin American narratives in mainstream streaming content, offering viewers more culturally specific storytelling. The involvement of established literary figures could elevate the prestige of streaming adaptations, though the commercial pressures of simultaneous development may influence how authors shape their work.