[3] Bioscopewala has taken forward the timeline of Kabuliwala, the original story written by Rabindranath Tagore, from the 19th century to somewhere in the 1980s during the Taliban regime and changed the profession of Rehmat, the central character, from a dry fruit seller to a man who goes around showing films to children through his bioscope.

[4] In the year 2009, it was reported that French-Afghan filmmaker Atiq Rahimi was planning to adapt Rabindranath Tagore's short story Kabuliwala into a film but the project did not materialize.

[5] In the year 2012, it was reported that Sunil Doshi was collaborating with Atiq Rahimi to make Kabuliwala, which was an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's short story of the same name, and Amitabh Bachchan was going to play the title role.

In the year 2016, Sunil Doshi approached Ram Madhvani with the idea of adapting the story of Kabuliwala to the screen who in turn directed him towards his colleague Debashish Medhekar, who was an ad-filmmaker at Equinox.

The critic praised the performances of all actors with special mention for Danny Denzongpa and concluded his review saying, "Make time for Bioscopewala, it’s a deeply affecting film, imbued with a lingering love for cinema.

[21] Shrishti Negi of News18 gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 and said that, "In a rising atmosphere of cultural intolerance, hate and violence, director Deb Medhekar’s Bioscopewala promises hope and manages to convey the more heart-warming emotion of humankind.