Holy Defiance 2026

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

Directed by Karla Jelić

Since 2024, on central squares in many towns and cities across Croatia, groups of primarily elderly and middle-aged men calling themselves 'The Knights of the Immaculate Heart of Mary', gather together in communal prayer and advocating for Christian values, the importance of the patriarchy and enforcing limitations of women's rights, treating these squares as their own personal battlefield, upon which women have no place. Through the documentations of the reactions of law enforcement officials, ordinary passerbys and the 'Knights' themselves, as well as the defiant pieces of multimedia artist Arijana Lekić, Holy Defiance creates a vivid, lively, energetic and varied portrait of women's rights in post-war Croatia.