Voted #20 on the list of "100 Best Films" by the prominent French magazine 'Cahiers du Cinema' in 2008.
It was the first film to extensively incorporate classical Indian music and dancing.
The film was shot in the Nimtita Rajbari, a palace which once belonged to Upendra Narayan, the real person upon whom author Tarashankar Banerjee based his main character Biswambhar Roy on, apart from the scenes in the actual music room, which were shot in studio in Calcutta, as the one in the Nimtita Rajbari was "not impressive enough" in director Satyajit Ray's eyes.