Alonso Varela

Alonso Varela is a Spanish filmmaker, writer and director, and the founder and CEO of Jimsonweed Studios. After more than 25 years working internationally in visual effects and animation, he is now bringing that experience into the stories he has spent the last decade writing and developing.

His career has taken him across four continents and some of the most ambitious film and television productions of their time. Working at the intersection of image, technology and narrative gave him a close understanding of how large creative teams build worlds, solve complex problems and turn an idea into a finished screen experience.

His visual effects work has been recognised at the highest level of the industry. His contribution to Napoleon formed part of the film’s Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects; his supervisory work on The Witcher Season 3 received the BAFTA Television Craft Award for Special, Visual & Graphic Effects; and his work on The Boys Season 3 was shortlisted for Emmy consideration and received a Visual Effects Society nomination. Earlier, he contributed to Academy Award-winning teams behind The Jungle Book, Ex Machina and Avatar: The Way of Water.

That career was never separate from filmmaking. For almost ten years, Alonso has been writing and developing original worlds of his own, moving from helping realise other filmmakers’ stories to taking responsibility for the stories he wants to tell as writer and director.

He founded Jimsonweed Studios in Asturias to make that transition possible: a studio able not only to develop and produce original films and series, but also to build the production, post-production, technological and educational systems they require. It is both a creative platform and a long-term commitment to bringing international knowledge home, creating skilled work and leaving infrastructure for the next generation.

His current authored projects are ASTUR, a six-film saga rooted in the history, mythology, landscape and cultural memory of Asturias; MONDO, a 3D animated series developed since 2020; and XOLO, an episodic thriller. These are the works he chooses to represent in his public selected filmography. His complete professional credits remain available through IMDb.

Through Jimsonweed Studios, Alonso is bringing together filmmaking, original intellectual property, visual effects, animation, technology and education within one studio system. The objective is clear: to tell stories with international reach from Asturias, and to create the conditions for others to do the same.