Amir Mahdi Qurbani, a refugee in Indonesia, on his love of Legos and how he became an animator on Pharrell Williams' new movie Piece by Piece
hen Amir Mahdi Qurbani was younger, his mother would buy stories from him. She never paid much. As the only teacher of an informal school for five or six children in their home in Tehran, she didn’t have much. Qurbani’s favorite story followed the escapades of a space cowboy, who could fly anywhere in the universe and go on adventures in vast uncharted galaxies.
Until recently, the family has lived mostly on money from international refugee organizations, which Qurbani says amounts to about 600 Australian dollars a month. They cannot work for an Indonesian employer and they cannot go to school, so Qurbani’s formal education essentially ceased when he was 9. Their parents bought one ASUS laptop, and Qurbani and his brother and sister attempted to continue their education, learning English and picking up animation skills on that.
Qurbani designed more than 400 characters in the film, mostly in crowd scenes, and animated the Lego version of the pixelated camouflage Louis Vuitton ensemble that the star wears in the poster. And, wouldn’t you know it, Qurbani is also a Pharrell fan. “His songs are the most calm and soothing, and they just give me inspiration for all my works,” he says. “Two of my favorite things, Lego and Pharrell, came together. I didn't think that something like this could happen.
Qurbani spends his mornings trying to further his education as best he can, his afternoons trying to do whatever work is needed, and then after dinner he and his family crowd around the computer to watch the movies they can find for free on the Internet. “If we can save enough money, we would buy a TV,” he says. For now, any extra cash Qurbani has made has been spent on the most powerful computer he can afford, a MacBook Air, on which he builds all his animations.
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