Atithi (literally The Guest; also known by the alternative English title The Runaway) is a 1965 Bengali drama film based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore, and directed by Tapan Sinha.

[3] It was India's competitive entry at the Venice International Film Festival in 1966, where it was nominated for the Golden Lion.

Tapan Sinha interviewed "some two hundred and fifty lads" before he selected Partha Mukherjee to play the role of Tarapada.

For the role of Charu, he chose Basabi, the daughter of the well-known comic actor Bhanu Bandopadhyay, and got the two youngsters to rehearse together.

[7] When asked about the film's success, Tapan Sinha said in an interview, "The greatest achievement was the hearty felicitations of millions of people - both from the intellectual circles and the common man.

"[5] Shampa Banerjee and Anil Srivastava include Atithi in their selection of 100 Indian feature films.

They write: "What Sinha did for Tagore's simple tale was to recreate that elusive freedom that the human spirit searches for even today."