Holy Defiance

Tiha misa

Once a month, hundreds of men kneel on Croatian squares to pray for patriarchy. One woman keeps showing up to defy them.

Calling themselves 'The Knights of the Immaculate Heart of Mary', the groups fence off public squares with sacred markers, blocking citizens and barring women from entering. Multimedia artist Arijana Lekić Fridrih travels to a different city each month to perform her feminist piece, 'Silent Mass', a striking intervention using red string to move through the spaces these men have claimed. Holy Defiance captures the tension as it builds: from being ignored, to facing increasingly aggressive confrontations with participants, security and police. Against the relentless drone of chanting that calls for obedience and male spiritual leadership, Arijana's quiet persistence in reclaiming public space becomes an act of extraordinary courage, drawing attention to the crisis of femicide in Croatia and the fight to simply exist freely as a woman.