Michael Tessari is a South Australian Cinematographer working on narrative, commercials and music videos.

Recent work includes the sci-fi thriller Monolith (dir. Matt Vesely) which won an Award of Distinction at the National Australian Cinematographers Society Awards and was also honoured with a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize in Cinematography at the 2023 SXSW festival in Austin.

Early in his career Tessari was recognised by the Australian Cinematographers Society with the Cliff Ellis award for Emerging Cinematographer of the Year in 2013 and the Milton Ingerson award for the best in show, entry of the year, at the 2017 awards in South Australia.

Following this, Tessari has worked consistently on narrative long-form projects, with the horror film Awoken released theatrically in 2018 across North America and the rest of the world. The Netflix Original Series Gymnastics Academy followed and trended at number 1 across multiple countries, and the aforementioned sci-fi thriller Monolith, had a successful festival run across the world at SXSW, AFF, FreightFest, Bifan, MIFF and Sitges to name a few.

2023 ended with Tessari wrapping production on the Screen Australia financed feature, With or Without You (dir. Kelly Schilling) which is set to premiere in 2024.