The establishment of the Béla Balázs Studio was initiated by young film professionals in 1959, but it was officially founded only in 1961. It served as a training studio for freshly graduated filmmakers, where they could make films that were not produced to be screened. Through its board, which consisted of elected members of the Studio, the BBS enjoyed partial autonomy over the redistribution of the yearly budget. Beginning in the 1970s, they started to involve “outsiders” in the activities of the studio, which became increasingly marked by two parallel tendencies: engaged forms of documentary and experimental analysis of the language of cinematography.