[2] The film's world premier was at the 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 30 April 2009.

[4] In Act of God director Jennifer Baichwal questions whether being struck by lightning is a "random natural occurrence or a predestined event".

[5] She speaks to American novelist and screenwriter Paul Auster, Canadian dramatist James O'Reilly, and US Marine veteran and author Dannion Brinkley.

She also interviews a storm chaser in France,[6] and a group of Mexican mothers who accept the loss of their children to lightning at a religious festival as "God's will".

[4] Auster, the "philosophical anchor of the film",[6] relates how he saw his friend being struck by lightning a short distance from him at a summer camp.

[4] Many of Baichwal's films are about artists and the creative process, but she has also explored philosophical and spiritual themes, for example in her award-winning documentary The Holier It Gets, which records her journey to the source of the Ganges River in India.

[9] But the final inspiration to begin work on the film came from her partner Nicholas de Pencier, "a weather nerd", and the writings of lightning survivor, Paul Auster.

[3] Chris Jancelewicz of AOL Canada Entertainment said the footage taken by Jennifer Baichwal's partner, Nick de Pencier is "nothing short of remarkable".

[7] "One of the amazing things about Act of God is Baichwal's ability to resist this urge to dictate what lightning, and ultimately chance, fate, and destiny mean in the bigger picture.