The title is a play on words, after Louis Daguerre, the French inventor of the photograph, called then a "daguerreotype". The shops and people featured in the movie are all on Daguerre Street, within a block of the filmmaker Agnès Varda's home. Varda is an avid still photographer.
Director Agnès Varda was caring for her two-year-old son at the time of filming and as such could not spend long periods away from her home. Because of this, the entire film is confined within a 90-metre radius of Varda's home - the length of the electric cables for her equipment.
30 years later, Agnès Varda made Rue Daguerre en 2005 (2005), a 22-minute short revisiting the same street to see how things might have changed in three decades. The same grocer was still there, and the accordion shop had been repainted a different color.