Rui Xu is an LA-based independent producer in film and theater, and a certified PMP® (Project Management Professional), championing bold, underrepresented voices and sparking global collaboration through storytelling and artmaking.
With a background in music engineering and sound design, Xu founded her own start-up and produced touring off-Broadway shows in China before moving into producing and managing theater and film productions in the U.S.
Her theater work with the CalArts Center for New Performance includes Night Walk in the Chinese Garden (written and directed by Stan Lai); The Carolyn Bryant Project (created by Nataki Garrett and Andrea LeBlanc); Scene with Cranes (written by Octavio Solis, directed by Chi-wang Yang); Augustine Machine ou Encore une nuit d’insomnie (directed by Travis Preston); and Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side (written by Adrienne Kennedy, directed by Monty Cole).
Xu’s films have premiered at major international festivals. Hieu premiered at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (2019), winning the Deuxième Prix at Cinéfondation. Finis Terrae screened at Critics’ Week at the 77th Venice International Film Festival (2020), where it won the Special Mention FEDIC Award for Best Short Film. Her debut feature, Way Out Ahead of Us, premiered in competition at the Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille (2022) and went on to win Best Narrative Feature at the New Hampshire Film Festival, and is now streaming on Tubi.
Xu is currently developing a slate of projects, including the feature film 1972 (written by Marissa Chibas, selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive); Uncle Hiep’s Casino (written and directed by Richard Van, recipient of the SFFILM Rainin Grant, and selected for Film Independent’s Fast Track, Screenwriting Lab, and Producing Lab); and Wither (written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Logan Jackson).
She holds master’s degrees in Creative Producing from CalArts and in Music Technology from NYU. She is an alumna of Film Independent’s Project Involve, where she received the Participant Fellowship grant, a fellow of the Producers Guild of America’s CREATE program, and a fellow of Film Independent’s Producing Lab. She is currently a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts and a producer at the CalArts Center for New Performance.
