Anthony Diaz, rare kind of filmmaker

As much as the characters of Kaizen Studio’s Way of the Cross carries the emotional weight of the story forward, the WORLD that they live in dictate their actions, and the locations in this film play a major role in shaping the story.
From Filipino-American actor-producer-director-writer Anthony “T-boy” Diaz V’s action thriller Break released last year comes the mystery feature Way of the Cross, a new, controversial film shot in the Philippines for international and national release this year. Diaz gives up the director job and shares it with Gorio Vicuna to focus as actor to let you have goosebumps.
When Erik Matti’s Seklusyon that has scenes desecrating the Virgin Mary screened in the flop 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival and turned out to be one of its three top grossers, the Catholic Church decided to let it go. It knew that controversy and the negative publicity mileage were what the filmmakers were baiting, but it did not bite!
There are no such scenes in Way of the Cross. The film title is a vague reference to the Catholic Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as Way of Sorrows or Via Crucis. As such, it alludes to the series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers.
Although “way of the cross” is a phrase strongly associated with the Catholic faith, it has no desecration scene and has a cross knife design strongly linked with Satanism. So “Way of the Cross” is the feature that Alvin Lorenz Anson talked about during the media launch of Break last year.
This was discernible, I thought, in the design of the media launch held at the Beats Bar and Grill on Mother Ignacia Avenue, Quezon City. The foreign-looking cast and crew dressed in the color of death looked otherworldly.
The host, publicist Alwyn Ignacio, was a “lady in white” in a gown with an uneven hemline. Even the press kit with the “Memory Book April 2017,” a glossy magazine-cum/autograph book that highlights the cast and crew and shoot photos came with Kisses chocolate candies in a black bag with a strip of red ribbon. Shades of blood sucking!
This is why I come to expect Alwyn’s press conferences. They are well-organized and complete with production design!
It made me cringe to realize that from where I came from, the Sta. Rita de Cascia Parish at Philamlife Homes where I am volunteer for its 60th anniversary celebration, I moved to the media launch of Way of the Cross. And when I asked to leave almost as soon as I arrived to return to where I came from, I was asked by Ignacio’s kind partner, “Please write about it ha?” as if clueless that I give her invites full publicity.
And the driver who brought me there deserted me without information. God is kind that the bar had a kind and tattooed bouncer who assisted this person with disability to hail a cab. He even brought me a chair to sit on and placed it on the side street that made me an attention-grabbing king of the road.
And then I learned Way of the Cross came with a post-shoot accident! Script supervisor and Way of the Cross family member Mj Balagtas was involved in a head-on collision along with two of the feature’s actors on final shoot day. She survived it and was brought to a specialist in Manila for better treatment.
Terror!

RARE BREED. The brawny Diaz is the rare breed of filmmaker for his craft that makes him an exceptional multitasker. Just to maintain his slim, muscled body by pumping iron regularly is major work by itself. Most actors are only that, but Diaz is the complete filmmaker. In Way of the Cross, he continued to grind away for the maximum big screen appeal.
On screen and in photos, Diaz strikes as a kind of millennial James Dean, but a rebel with a cause, and with a more relatable Liam Neeson-ish vibe. He is the new kind of screen hero who has a good head to match the well-toned physique. And somehow you sense that there is a tenderness beneath the swagger and the action star gait.
Before 20, Diaz had completed dozens of short films. The independent filmmaking spirit has been evident early on with Diaz multitasking, taking on screen writing, directing, producing, acting and editing duties. At 20, he graduated with high honors at the University of Las Vegas Film School, making him the youngest graduate in the history of the program.
Diaz has received acclaim for the early short films he made like “Delusion” and “Forgotten Heroes.” In 2012, he put up a film production company called Kaizen Studios in Las Vegas, USA. The following year, he established a satellite of Kaizen Studios in Shibuya, Japan.
He is now in pre-production for his next film to be shot in Japan.

NO SPOILER. Set against a faith-driven small town in the Philippines (Pakil, Laguna), Way of the Cross follows Rogelio “Rogue” Marquez (Anthony Diaz V), a Las Vegas-based Filipino-American FBI agent whose estranged father living in the Philippines is diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.
Rogue travels to his home country to visit his terminally ill father and half-sister in Manila. A string of murders occur during Holy Week celebrations in the nearby town of San Antonio that sends waves of terror among the local town people, and stuns the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its top agent.
Rogue’s curiosity and FBI instincts lure him into a dark cat-and/mouse world of religious abstracts as he attempts to uncover the motivation behind the murders in hopes to solve the mystery.
Completing the cast are Rafael Rosell, Daiana Menezes, Roxanne Barcelo, Giovanni Respall, Miguel Vasquez, Yussef Esteves, Oz Rivera, Danielle Chopin, Dax Martin, Paolo Gamboa, Nicole Malonzo, Sean Guyamin and Jordan Castillo Jr.
Way of the Cross is an international indie film line-produced by Elaine Carriedo Lozano of Eye In The Sky Pictures, Zenza Global, Gward Inc., Anthony Diaz and Alvin Anson with Peejay Vicuna as supervising producer, Antonio Diaz and Lani Dizon as executive producers, written by Antonio Diaz and Gorio Vicuna and directed by Anthony Diaz abd Gorio Vicuna.
With faith, sometimes you have to see to believe.