Ismail Safarali (Ismail Safaraliyev) was born in Baku. He studied at the Master's degree in Economics at Duke University in the USA (2003), and at the Moscow New Cinema School in the director's laboratory of Dmitry Mamulya (2015).

He worked as an investment analyst for a while.

He was the director and screenwriter of the Russian-made short feature film "New Cinema #3" (2019), and the line producer of the film "Klimanjara" (2018, directed by Ekaterina Telegina).