Born in São Paulo in 1953, Rubens Xavier has been a filmmaker since 1978 when he founded the production company Gira Filmes and began his carreer as a short, medium and feature lenght film producer.

In 1979 Xavier made Sete Vidas (8', 16mm), his first short film, which travelled to several Festivals and was awarded with the Honorable Mention at the first Feira Nacional de Humor da Cidade de Curitiba, Paraná - Brazil. In 1981 he directed O Homem Descasado (38', 16mm), his first TV special, joining fiction and documentary. Xavier lived in New York City between 1982 and 1984 organizing the Brazilian Film Festival. 

During that period, Xavier directed the short film State of War (13', 16mm), exhibited at the Shakespeare Film Festival in New York (1987) and awarded at the Festival de Gramado.

In 1996 he wrote, directed and produced a film series about the geopolitics in cities of the Southwest of Brazil. In 2005 he directed the documentary Oi Lá no Céu! In 2006 he directed another documentary, Reconhecendo Guarapiranga. In 2007, yet another documentary, Bambu Rei, and in 2008 the fiction feature film A Guerra dos Vizinhos.