We've all felt the terror of being lost - whether as a child lost in a market, a student working on a math problem, or just trying to find that new restaurant in traffic. Being lost is more than a physical state. It's also a key part of our cultural and spiritual existence. From the Odyssey to the Bible to The Blair Witch Project, being lost is a central motif in our culture.

After nine-year old Andy Warburton disappeared into the Nova Scotia forest, Ken Hill, along with thousands of others, tried to help find him. The failed rescue operation and Warburton's death left Hill, a psychologist at Saint Mary's University, devastated. He decided to dedicate his research to understanding the behavior of lost people. LOST is a new film about what he and other researchers have learned so far about the human reaction to being lost and how we find our way to safety.

In LOST we navigate the winding streets of London with a cabbie, a master of "the knowledge." We also visit West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in the world, where 2000 people get lost every year despite the ready availability of maps. Malls are often designed to disorient the shoppers to keep them inside - in this way they are like mazes, such as the Hampton Court labyrinth, the largest in England. With a young couple we enter the labyrinth, and observe differences in the ways that men and women try to find their way (it should come as no surprise that men and women orient themselves differently).

Examples of Ken Hill's field research, interviews with him and psychologist Dr. Daniel Montello of the University of California, and behind-the-scenes coverage of sophisticated search and rescue operations in wild forests, help us to understand the science behind the decisions lost people make.

"An intelligent and extraordinary film, LOST transcends the scary aspects of the box office hit, Blair Witch Project, by integrating search and rescue techniques with scientific studies ... This fascinating subject, the psychology and physical orientation of being lost, engages the viewer. This film will hold your attention, and leave you wanting to know more. Highly recommended."—Educational Media Reviews Online