Re-Creation feels more like a quiet examen of conscience. It begins where Scripture begins: “God saw all that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Creation was harmony, gift, and grace, and the human person, not its owner but its crown. Yet somewhere along the way, we took the crown for ourselves. We created, but it was not good.
Clarice Menezes’ short film gently exposes this tragic reversal. Set by the sea, a place of stillness and memory, the protagonist pauses long enough to remember who she is and to whom she belongs to. With an open Bible and an open heart, she rereads the creation story, only to be confronted by its distorted echo: polluted shores, restless noise, discarded waste. What God spoke into being through love, we have reshaped through neglect. The instruments of God’s handiwork have distanced themselves from the Master, and the spiral has been downward.
Yet Re-Creation refuses despair. In the spirit of Laudato Si’, it invites contemplation before action. St. Ignatius’ Contemplation to Attain Love whispers through every frame: God is still working in and through creation, giving, sustaining, labouring so that we may live. The question is painfully simple: Do I notice? Do I pay attention?
Karl Rahner once wrote that the Christian of the future will be a mystic, or will not exist at all. This film takes that seriously. It suggests that ecological healing begins not with grand strategies, but with awakened awareness. When even one person chooses differently, creation responds. We are meant to move toward fullness, toward what Teilhard de Chardin called the Omega Point, not regress into chaos through indifference.
Directed and edited by Clarice Menezes, with sensitive cinematography by Samuel John Fernandes, the film’s strength lies in its restraint. Clarice’s own presence on screen feels honest, unforced, prayerful. Supported by a small but committed team and inspired by pastoral accompaniment, Re-Creation is proof that small, contemplative acts can still tilt the world toward goodness.
Watch this film not as a spectator, but as a participant. Because re-creation begins the moment we choose to see again.
