10s Across the Borders

Set in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia. New York and elsewhere, 10S ACROSS THE BORDERS is a pan-Asian queer film that confronts homophobia, transphobia, and racism while celebrating the region’s underground ballroom culture. As the title suggests, Sze-Wei Chan envisions a world where members of Ballroom communities far from New York can also score a perfect 10.

This film follows three leading characters of Southeast Asia’s ballroom scene—Teddy from Malaysia who ran away from his homophobic father, Xyza from the Philippines who found beauty in herself after being rejected by the modeling world, and Sun who was born to a Thai sex worker mother and European father.

In the film’s finale, the performers’ surreal performance cuts between Southeast Asia’s back alleys and New York’s bustling streets, dissolving boundaries of nation, gender, race, age, religion, and class to soar beyond the rainbow. This is Southeast Asia’s answer to the seminal documentary the 1990 classic Paris is Burning.