Q1. What is your name?

A. My name is Darryl Knickrehm. But I'm more commonly known as Dariru.

Q2. Where are you originally from?

A. I'm from Orange County, California, right next to Los Angeles.

Q3. How long have you been in Japan?

A. I've been in Japan for almost 5 years now, and amazingly I haven't left Japan yet! Of course I've had my ups and downs, but my time here has been wonderful.

Q4. What are you into at the moment?

A. Since I've been organizing KIFF, I've been really in to this short film called Missing Pages. Its a very original film stylistically. You gotta come check it out at KIFF this year. Music-wise I'm really in to Ellegarden, a Japanese punk/rock band. They remind me of the bands from back home in LA and OC.

Q5. What do you do in Japan?

A. I'm a filmmaker and photographer. I've made 6 films in Japan now, and have established a production group called DK PRO in Kobe. The goal to all of my films and DK PRO is to mix east and west in style, story and ideas through film and photography. In 2008 I'm hoping to expand to feature length films. I've also taken photos for magazines and weddings, and just like 99% of foreigners in Japan, I've taught English.

Q6. How did you manage to organize the Kansai International Film Festival?

A. Originally I was putting together some screenings of my films and Matthew Kaufman, an writer for Kansai Time Out Magazine suggested we combine my screening with one KTO was trying to put together. So we had a lot of Japanese films made by foreigners, so the concept of the festival developed from there. After that, Ayumi Okada, the festival coordinator and I went searching for a location to hold the event. We met many people in the industry and eventually met Kiyomaro Kawano, the director of the Osaka branch of the Short Shorts Film Festival. He then helped us meet the people in Osaka-fu and everything just fell in to place from there.

Kansai Film
Official website: http://www.kansaifilm.com
P ress kit: http://kansaifilm.dariru.com/kiffpresskit.rar

Q7. Is it a big challenge for you to work as a filmmaker and photographer in Japan? Tell me about it.

A. It is challenging. I guess one of the most challenging factors is the language barrier. While my Japanese isn't bad, it isn't perfect, so its not extremely easy to meet people and be taken seriously. So it makes it more challenging to make films, but not impossible. Taking photos isn't difficult because they can be published anywhere in the world. Actually I have an advantage over most native Japanese photographers in that I can speak English and get in touch with magazines abroad that don't have easy access to photos of Japan. So the language problem works both ways.

Q8. Any funny/horrible stories about working in Japan?

A. Oh lots. And I'm gonna be a salesman and say, "Come out and see my movies and you can see what they are!" You can see some of my experiences and my friends experiences in my film Rodosha. I'm also in pre-production on a film called One Fine Day (temp title) that is a funny look on some of my experiences and again my friends experiences teaching English in Japan.

Q9. What are your goals for future?

A. I love Japan, that is the reason I came here to begin with. In university, I started studying Japanese language and then ended up coming to the country 3 times. I just found something very intriguing and comfortable here. So my goal would be to continue in Japan and move on to making feature length films. I would like to be able to contribute to Japanese society and film in a positive way and help bring more international stories home (to Japan) and show the world more about Japan. So my major goal would be to help DK PRO grow into a production company in Kobe, to produce feature films, continue with Cinema Kansai (an independent film magazine with the first issue out soon), and make some films that could be entertaining and revitalize Japanese aesthetics in an international way.

Q10. What is your favorite Japanese words?

A. Sumimasenkedo.

Q11. Message to WhyNot!? users!

A. For the foreigners out there wanting to really see Japan, stick it out the first few years, and by your third year you can truly enjoy this very interesting and beautiful country. Don't begin to think of yourself as a "foreigner." Just remember we are all human beings, and behind the culture and custom we have the same hearts, thoughts and desires.

Please check my site for more info: http://www.dariru.com