In geography, upstream literally means towards the source of a stream or river, or against the normal direction of water flow.

Upstream is the opposite of downstream. It may also refer to:

Shane Carruth (born 1972) is an American film writer, director, editor, producer, actor and musician.

Carruth was born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He attended Stephen F. Austin State University.

Carruth wrote, directed, produced, performed one of the two main roles, and composed the music for his independent film Primer, which was honored at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with the Grand Jury Prize. Carruth, a former software engineer with an undergraduate degree in mathematics, utilized his technical knowledge on the project.

David Sullivan, one of the leads in Primer, claimed on his Twitter that "Shane Carruth's next project, A Topiary, is in the early stages of pre-production." Filmmaker Rian Johnson also posted: "Shane... has a mind-blowing sci-fi script. Let's all pray to the movie-gods that he gets it made soon." In 2010, several news sources reported that A Topiary is in the works, and that the script is written. There is already a website for the movie (www.atopiary.com), which, according to Carruth in an interview to io9, "The website for now is just a place mark as financing has yet to be completed. I'm cautiously optimistic that this can happen soon and couldn't be happier with the filmmakers that have committed to the project so far."

Mark Kermode (born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons. He also co-presents the BBC Two arts programme The Culture Show and discusses other branches of the arts for the BBC Two programme Newsnight Review. Kermode writes and presents a film-related video blog for the BBC.

Kermode, born Mark Fairey in Barnet, North London, England, attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent boys' school in Elstree, a few years ahead of comedians Sacha Baron Cohen, Matt Lucas and David Baddiel and in the same year as actor Jason Isaacs. He was raised as a Methodist, and is now a member of the Church of England.

Mark Fairey's parents divorced when he was in his early 20s and he subsequently changed his surname to his GP mother's maiden name by deed poll. (Neither of them is related to the literary critic Frank Kermode.)