Patino produced pieces on the Spanish Civil War (Canciones para después de una guerra), the famous dictator (Caudillo), or his executioners (Queridísimos verdugos).

[5]In 1955 he organized the celebrated Conversaciones de Salamanca, the first critical analysis of Spanish cinema, and he later moved to Madrid and enrolled in film school after graduating from university.

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).

[18][19] The Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences awarded the 2005 Gold Medal to the director, writer and researcher Basilio Martín Patino, whose work "represents the enduring values of the commitment to intelligent, complex cinema immersed in reality and evolution of a country"[20] In 2012, he made his last film, the documentary film Libre te quiero (2012) about the camp of the 15-M movement in Madrid.

Behind his elegance, calmness and shyness was hidden a fierce and determined attitude to make the movies he wanted, always on the margins, away from the industry, without caring about commercial successes.