In 1978, journalist Małgorzata Karbowiak published a probing investigation of the state of affairs in Poland's Educational Film Studio (Wytwòrnia Filmow Oświatowych, or WFO, located in Łodź) in Film, one of the nation's leading cinema journals. The popular-science film, which had once been “the calling card of the WFO” was now at a “profound impasse.” Fewer and fewer documentaries of this kind were being produced. What's more, the WFO was failing in its mandate to supply educational films to schools. “In 1977, the WFO produced 55 school films. This year, they plan to produce 50, and in 1979—only 30!” she lamented. Karbowiak partly blamed a recent round of budget cuts and a reorganization of award categories at Krakow's annual film festival, leaving these genres without any chance at national recognition. Above all, she chalked up the “change in the profile of the studio” to the arrival of new talent. “It is not hard to notice something else,” she wrote: “that there is simply less interest in the subject on the part of filmmakers. The best proof of this is that the group of young artists gathered at the WFO is manifestly interested in different things.”