10s Across the Borders review: Voguing across continents

Some films make for irresistible viewing on title alone. The vivid 10s Across the Borders, playing at this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, is one of them.

The verbal runway that is its name encapsulates the premise of Chan Sze-Wei’s lovingly made documentary with razor sharp precision, melding the ceremonial praise of ballroom (“yes mama!”) with a clear statement about stewardship over appropriation. Suffice to say, the film goes to great lengths to pay homage to the Black and Latinx queer communities of NYC from where this subculture was born, with one of its spiritual descendants even hot footing it from Malaysia to the Big Apple to connect IRL with the LGBTQ people of colour voguing in the mothership today.

For Sun from Thailand, Teddy from Malaysia, and Xyza from the Philippines – all key custodians of ballroom in their respective locales, and all sharp, fiercely determined personalities and fantastic dancers – movement is a religious matter. 

The film soars when handing over ample minutes to music video-worthy montages of the trio dancing with breathtaking, often superhuman agility, their keen eye contact with the camera enough to make the heart skip a beat. Sze-Wei’s eye for light and composition is uncanny, accentuating the magic of the performers and elevating the humdrum public spaces in which they twist, twirl and drape themselves into something altogether more artful.

The highpoint is a sublime scene in which Sun, in ornate headdress, manoeuvres with perfect balance above a mountainous landscape in Thailand. It’s later bookended by another of the same performer’s painted-gold body writhing celestially in nature. It feels inexplicably, elementally queer – not least because Sun earlier used the condensation on a train window to give an impromptu lesson in how the constant movement of gender fluidity can inform physical self-expression.

Sun, Teddy and Xyza’s complex backstories, plus those of the mostly queer youngsters in their orbit, are all wildly different yet somehow connected, moving like a kaleidoscope of defiance in the face of injustice – be that colourism, transphobia or HIV stigma. One speaks with tearful transparency about the first weeks of her medical transition; others recall being brutally arrested for “posing as women.”

The silver lining of the unfortunate biological family dynamics at play – one teen generates guttural laughter by throwing their voice and impersonating Barry White to take a call from their father – is the pure cuteness overload of seeing these kids so closely brought together across borders digital and physical.

Shoutouts to significant historical figures are informative. I was grateful to learn more about Crystal LaBeija, a drag queen and trans woman who, having grown tired of the anti-Black bias of drag competitions in ‘60s NYC, co-founded the House of LaBeija, alongside her sister Lottie LaBeija, with whom she began hosting her own balls. Offering refuge to homeless LGBTQ teens, the House of LaBeija now epitomises the ‘drag mother energy’ that so palpably lives on in Sun, Teddy and Xyza.

Comparisons with the iconic Paris Is Burning from 1990, about the burgeoning ballroom scene before Madonna sent it stratospheric with ‘Vogue’, are as inevitable as they are yawn-inducing. (Although perhaps less so than comparisons to RuPaul’s Drag Race or Pose.) As such, we’ll keep them confined to two paragraphs. Paris, despite its tight focus and modest length of 71 minutes, is evidently still relevant 36 years later. 10s, at 99 minutes, feels longer, and yet slighter by comparison. This, despite its pin-balling between Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Norway and NYC. Its scope and ambition are breathtaking, yes, but there’s only so much footage of a person walking from A-to-B one can watch before getting restless.

Still, the fact 10s prompts memories of Paris at all is no small compliment. If anything, it made Attitude want to rewatch. Consider this a spiritual sister worthy of a double bill.

10s Across the Borders is playing as part of the BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, running from 18–29 March 2026.

This article first appears in Attitude Uncut, the all-new digital magazine that will be published six times a year (between Attitude print issues) and available exclusively on Apple News+ and via the Attitude app. Featuring long-read journalism inspired by themes resonating within the LGBTQ+ community, each issue will provide a deep dive into topics as varied as sexuality, identity, health, relationships and beyond.