John Upchurch hosted at the Southern Circuit Independent Filmmakers meeting at Jule Collins

On Feb. 2, 2017, the Jules Collins Smith Art Museum hosted a showing for the Southern Circuit Independent Filmmakers. A program of South Arts in partnership with the National Endowments of the Arts, the tour showed "Mango Dreams," the feature film debut of writer and director, John Upchurch.

In his film, Upchurch tells the story of an Indian doctor, Ram Gopal Bajaj, struggling with dementia as he travels back in time through his failing memories in the three-wheeled auto rickshaw of a Muslim man, Pankaj Tripathi. The two develop a relationship through the challenges of their long journey and confront the long-felt conflicts between their starkly different religious upbringings. "Mango Dreams," tells the story of the lingering consequences of the India-Pakistan partition, but with a grace and humor that leaves the viewer hopeful.

Upchurch was born in a farming town in North Carolina where he was always captivated by the subtle skill of the local storytellers. He is tied personally to the conflicts in India through his wife, Pallabita, and personally to dementia through a childhood of caring for his sick grandmother. A computer programmer by trade, Upchurch began taking classes at a community college out of his own curiosity.

His film has been well-received at national and international film festivals, winning the Special Jury Award at the 2016 Arizona International Film Festival, the Merit Award for Best in Content: Humanity Award at the 2016 Cebu International Film Festival and the award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2016 Full Bloom Film Festival. It was well received at an independent film festival; however, due to the political climate in India, Upchurch does not know if it will ever officially be released in that country.

After the screening, the filmmaker fielded questions from the audience. He expanded on his experiences within India, funny cultural faux pas, and the many lessons he learned in creating this film. He says that, while there is not another film in the pre-production process, he hopes that since he has a feature film on his resume he won’t have to self-fund his next project.