Rafael de Luna Freire is a Brazilian scholar with a Ph.D. in Communication from the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), including a research stay at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSC). He is the founder of the Laboratório Universitário de Preservação Audiovisual at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, where he is currently the coordinator. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema and Video and in the Graduate Programme of Film and Audiovisual Studies at the same institution. He is also a founding member of the Associação Brasileira de Preservação Audiovisual (ABPA) and a member of the Executive Committee of Domitor, an international association dedicated to early cinema studies.

Rafael has specialized in cinema, audiovisual preservation, and digital restoration throughout his academic career. He is the author of numerous books on Brazilian cinema, the most recent of which is "O negócio do filme: a distribuição cinematográfica no Brasil, 1907-1915" ("The film business: film distribution in Brazil, 1907-1915").

He has received awards for the best sound restoration of the film Antes, o verão (directed by Gerson Tavares, 1967) and for the best research in the reconstruction of No más mamones (Luiz de Barros, 1929).

Rafael has made significant contributions through his participation in various conferences, including those of the Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual (SOCINE), the Asociación Argentina de Estudios de Cine y Audiovisual (AsAECA), and the Uruguayan Association, among others.