Winner of Peace

Sukjit grew up in Australia as a first-generation Sikh, navigating the specific tensions that come with being visibly different in a country that is still working out how much difference it can accommodate. He turned to spoken word poetry as the place where he could be fully honest about those experiences — the racism, the questions about where he belongs, the gap between the culture he carries from home and the one he lives in every day. His work as a youth commissioner with the Victorian Multicultural Commission means he does that work institutionally as well.

Winner of Peace is a film that takes identity seriously without being heavy about it. Sukjit is funny, direct, and specific — he doesn't generalize about the Sikh experience or reduce it to its hardest moments. The film also addresses community tensions around gender equality, reflecting his willingness to ask difficult questions of his own community, not just the wider one. Winner of Peace is a portrait of an artist whose medium is self-disclosure and whose work is, genuinely, about making peace — with where he came from, where he is, and who he is choosing to be.