Basilio Martin Patino

Basilio Martín Patino was born on October 29, 1930 in Lumbrales, a small rural town of Salamanca Province, Castile and León in Spain. He studied Philosophy and Letters at the University of Salamanca, where he founded the University cinema club. In 1955 he organized the celebrated Conversations of Salamanca, the first critical analysis of Spanish cinema, and he later moved to Madrid and enrolled in film school after graduating from university. He graduated from film school Escuela Oficial de Cine en Madrid in 1961 and soon after was met with censorship for his first short film, Torerillos (1963). His debut with the feature film Nueve cartas a Berta (Nine Letters to Bertha, 1966), starring Emilio Gutiérrez Caba and Elsa Baeza, won the Silver Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and was a key piece in the so-called "New Spanish Cinema". However, it had to wait three years for its commercial release due to censorship. In 1969 he shot "Del amor y otras soledades", mutilated by censorship, and in 1971 "Canciones para después de una guerra", a singular and moving critical radiography of the post-war period, which also suffered censorship for five years. In response, Martín Patino filmed "Queridísimos verdugos" (1973) and "Caudillo" (1977) in hiding. Caudillo is a documentary film that follows the military and political career of Francisco Franco and the most important moments of the Spanish Civil War. It uses footage from both sides of the war, music from the period and voice-over testimonies of various people. With the advent of democracy, the filmmaker founded his production company, La linterna mágica, from which he has alternated his fiction and documentary work with titles such as The Lost Paradise ("Los paraísos perdidos", 1985) screened at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival, "Madrid" (1987) and "Octavia" (2002). He also experimented with new technologies, including digital tools, 3D, and offline editing. In 1977, he was a member of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2005, he received the Gold Medal from the Spanish Academy of Cinema. He died on August 13, 2017 in Madrid at the age of 86.