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founded a film society and established both the respected film journal Cinema Universitario and in 1955, "Conversaciones Cinematográficas de Salamanca," a seminal conference in which Spanish filmmakers gathered to discuss the changing shape of the growing film industry. Patino’s first feature Nueve Cartas a Berta (1965) shows a Spain shifting toward modernity, revealing Franco's Spain as backward and stifling. The film has been heralded as one of the finest examples of the New Spanish Cinema. Though finished in 1971, his politically inflammatory documentary, Canciones para Después de una Guerra was deemed unacceptable for public viewing, but was privately screened by the censors and their families, being released released until after Franco's fall in the late '70s. At the time Patino decided two things: first to make other documentaries, and second to go underground to make them. Remarkable films include Queridisimos Verdugos, Caudillo, Los Paraisos Perdidos, La Seduccion del caos, Octavia as well as his most recent creative instalations.

Jaime de Armiñán: Spanish screenwriter and director Jaime de Armiñán works in both feature films and television. Armiñán entered the film industry after earning a law degree. In the 1950s, he established himself as an award-winning playwright whose better known works include Eva sin Manzana (aka Eve Without the Apple) and Café del Liceo (aka Cafe of the Opera). Armiñán joined the television industry in 1959 when he was hired by Radiotelevisión Española, and soon developed a reputation as one of televisions most distinctive writer/directors, thanks to such series as Galeria de Maridos (1959) and Las Doce Caras de Juan (1967). Durring this period, Armiñán was also building a career as a screenwriter. While his first two directorial attempts came and went with little notice, Armiñán won acclaim for his third effort, a touching story about a transsexual, Mi Querida Señorita (aka My Dearest Señorita, 1971).

Fernando Lara: Born in Madrid. As a journalist, Lara worked in a variety of publications, specializing in film criticism. From 1984 he directed the Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid (Seminci). In 2002 Lara was in charge of the Encuentro sobre Cine Europeo which took place during the celebrations of Salamanca as European Capital of Culture in 2002. He has also written several books about filmmaking. Currently, he is the Executive Director of the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.