CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Apurba Kishore Bir

Indian film cinematographer, director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ622342 ↗
Source-derived summary

Apurba Kishore Bir (born 1948), also known as A. K. Bir, is an Indian film cinematographer, screenwriter and director. An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, he worked in various Ad-films and documentaries before making his feature-film debut. He won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography for 27 Down, his debut film. His directional debut Aadi Mimansa won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. Bir's other directional ventures Lavanya Preeti and Baaja were bestowed with the National Film Award for Best Children's Film. As of 2014, he has won nine National Film Awards—including three for Best Cinematography—and is one of the directors of National Film Development Corporation of India.

Biography

Born in Balikuti village of Odisha, Bir had a great passion for painting. At the insistence of his father, he joined the Film and Television Institute of India with a specialisation in motion-picture cinematography. After passing out of the institute, he worked on short films and documentaries. 27 Down, his debut feature-film as a cinematographer, won him the Best Cinematographer award at the 21st National Film Awards.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Apurba Kishore Bir” is indian film cinematographer, director. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Apurba, Kishore and Indian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 2014—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1948-01-01. For this dossier, Apurba, Kishore and Indian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “indian film cinematographer, director” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q622342. VIAF identifies the subject as 160667860. The Library of Congress control number is n2010208302. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948 and 2014.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Apurba Kishore Bir”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Apurba Kishore Bir primary sources, Apurba Kishore Bir archive and Apurba research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Apurba Kishore Bir”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Apurba Kishore Bir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.