Born in Montreal, Xavier Tera grew up between Canada, the UK and Japan. He was raised in a strictly French-speaking household in a largely English-speaking country, and that sense of living between cultures runs through all of his work.

Before turning to film, he lived several lives: he travelled widely, photographed famous faces, waited tables and opened restaurants. Through all of it, filmmaking remained his first love. Based in Tokyo for nearly a decade, he first made his name as a fashion and art photographer, shooting for leading international fashion magazines and publishing a photo book titled 青 or the offspring of a blooming death.

His films blur the line between reality and fiction. The storytelling is stylised, sometimes noir in tone, and often lifted by touches of the surreal. That signature has led to collaborations with Harry Styles, Rosalía, Jeremy O. Harris and Kaytranada. Kaytranada, a friend since Xavier was 15, gave him free rein on the "Look Easy" music video, which drew on Takeshi Kitano's yakuza films. As Xavier puts it, he can't separate people from their stories.

In 2026 he made his feature debut, The Color of The Sun, shot in Okinawa. The film follows a grieving Japanese teenager who grows close to a young American boy living on one of the island's military bases. It premiered in the Orizzonti section of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize.