Gopu's Coolbar: A Corner to Create Movie Stories

When the word "Cinema" dances in the heads of many, a group of young cinephiles join at Gopu's Cool Bar to knit their dreams together. It's not only the sparkling cool drinks or the crispy snacks served with hot tea that invites young folks here but they come to Gopu's cool bar to have their most interesting film discussions. It's exciting to see how a small idea ensued in one's mind turns into a topic for their discussion which later develops as a new concept for their film" says youngster's much loved Unnichettan, Gopu's cool bar owner.

According to Unnichettan, Gopu's cool bar started its functioning in 1990 but it became popular after the movie 'Premam' directed by Alphonse Putran. Alphonse and his team used to come here always for their film discussions and they were the forerunners of Gopu's Film Company. "After the movie Premam, we had seen a huge rush of youngsters who had a dream to find space in the celluloid and later some of them joined Gopu's film company which still continues to be there after Alphonse and team," says Unnichettan. "The name of Gopu's film company also appeared in the end credits spaces of Alphonse movies" adds Unnichettan.

In the first glance, it appears just the same as other shops located near the most bustling road of Aluva but Cinephiles feel the space special because they find it appropriate for film planning and believed to be fortunate giving too. "Gopu's Film Company is a passionate gang consists of many youngsters with a variety of talents but what the common thing they share is that they all wanted to find their spaces in silver screen," says Simon, a member of Gopu's film company. "It is through Alphonse we came to know about Gopu's cool bar and how a short film team sees light in their life through the direction of a film with low budget and more usage of digital camera that fans the flame in young hearts" adds Simon.

Currently, Simon and his team were running the Film Company. Kuthirapavan, Idivetum Pemariyum, Operation Priyanka, Best actor, I am here, and the recent release The Colours Unseen were the short films done by Gopu's Film Company. Many of them have crossed one lakh views. Nenjam, a music video directed by Sanath Sivaraj is also a teamwork of Gopu's film Company which has crossed 274k views in a week's time. The romantic song of "Nenjam" written by Manu Manjith and sung by Vineeth Sreenivasan mesmerizes the young minds which lead to the success of the music video. The Colours Unseen was selected for the Lift-Off Global Network Film Festival this year.

Gopu's film company did not happen in a day. The budding artists have their own stories to tell; about how their art life got connected with Gopu's cool bar and how friendly they had changed their life destiny. "I too had problems in my life but it's my passion towards film making that led me resign my chef job and join in Gopu's Film Company to follow my dreams," says Vishnu Gopakumar Menon, Gopu's film company member. "The ongoing pandemic has also affected us greatly like others, so if everything comes to normalcy we are planning to do a film together," says Vishnu with confidence.