Xavier Gayan was born in 1975 in Pau, France.
After making deux short fictions in Montpellier and directing a play written by Fassbinder ("Blut at halm der katz"), he moved to Paris in 2000. In 2001, he directed one of his own plays ("Déballages"). In 2002, he made a 90' film called "Place de la République, thirty years later", inspired by Louis Malle's 1974 documentary "Place de la République".