In September 2006, the film was selected as the official submission from Japan in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2007 Oscars.
None of the actresses had any dance training prior to the film, so they trained for three months.
The people of the area of this mining town speak with accent/dialect. In one scene the dancing teacher(Madooka) can't understand what Yojiro Tanikawa is arguing about because of his accent.