He was born in Tirana, in 1958. He studied visual arts and film directing in Tirana, and then went on to film school in Denmark. He is a film director and also an actor, a producer, a stage director and a short story writer. He directed the documentary "For One Centimetre" which was awarded at the Turin Sport Film Festival. Artan Minarolli has published a volume with short novels entitled "The Corpse Of A Telephone". In 2004, he has written and directed feature fiction film “Moonless Night”, an Albanian–French co-production. This film won Best Film Award in Med-Film Festival Rome, Italy and Best Film Award in Trenton film Festival, New Jersey. Minarolli’s project “Alive”(Gjalle) was awarded at Montpellier Film Festival and at Belgrade Film Festival.

He is also the director of the Albanian Center of Cinematography.