German-born Burhan Qurbani is the son of political refugees from Afghanistan. He worked as camera assistant at the Stuttgart-based teamWerk which – in 2002- led him to study directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

In 2008 his student film Illusion won the Jury Prize at the International Hamburg Short Film Festival and the Critics’ Prize at the Filmfest Dresden.
The same year, Qurbani won „Best Student Film“ (worth $25,000) at the Middle East Film Festival in Abu Dhabi.

His graduation film Shahada tells the story of three muslims in Berlin during the month of Ramadan. Qurbani’s goal was to to give the discrepancies between the German and Islamic culture a cinematic outlet. Shahada premiered in the competition of the 60th Berlin Filmfestival in 2010. With his film Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark (We are young , we are strong, 2014) Burhan Qurbani traces the small ridge between the loss of identity resulting in an escape into an ideology with a promise of perspectives for the future. It is the picture of a lost generation shortly after German Unification.
Burhan Qurbani lives in Berlin, Stuttgart and Helsinki. In addition to being a filmmaker he sang in the English-speaking rock band Pretty Used.

At Villa Aurora Burhan Qurbani will continue work on a screenplay for a feature based on Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz.