This film was written, directed and produced entirely by Makoto Shinkai on his Power Mac G4. Makoto and his wife, Miko provided the voice acting for the working dub (A second Japanese dub was later created for the DVD release with professional voice actors).
Often cited as an inspiration on the 2014 film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan.
"Hoshi no Koe" was shown for one month by small theater "Tollywood" in Shimokitazawa (a town in the west area of Tokyo), but the many people who had watched the trailer on the Web thronged there. Tollywood has only 46 seats, but 3000 or more persons watched it through the month.
The film has two different Japanese voice casts. The original cast was made up of director Makoto Shinkai and other non-professionals. The official release version was re-recorded with a professional cast. Both of these voice tracks are available on DVD.