Bio

By age 3, Tessa was active in Girl Scouts, gymnastics and dance; and frequently found herself winning large scale public coloring contests. Tessa's adolescent years were spent attending public schools and staying active in hobbies like choir, ice skating, soccer, yearbook and dance. Tessa's acceptance into a competitive dance program deepened her adoration for the art form which laid a foundation that would soon lead Tessa to her first professional role on a set. During high school, to survive the turbulent waves of a split home and an ever-changing zip code, when Tessa wasn't dancing, singing, or playing soccer… she was watching movies. A film's ability to magically transport her to a completely new world and shift her focus away from her own life to that of the characters in the film, lit a spark deepen within her that would one day grow into a blazing fire.

After high school, Tessa's academic studies lead to a BA in film at The University of Texas. During college, while out dancing with girl friends at a local nightclub, Tessa was scouted and asked to perform as a principal model/dancer in NBA Player Tony Parker's debut French music video "Balance-Toi". Tessa fell in love with the thrill of being on set and went on to grace magazine covers and billboards as a model as she shifted her academic focus from directing to acting. Her performance training rapidly evolved into attendance at 7 different acting studios in hopes to one day create her own "secret sauce." After her film degree and slot on the Dean's A-honor roll list was achieved, Tessa journeyed to Los Angeles where she initially embraced opportunities to play leading roles in indie films like "The First Born,” “Diamond” and "The Madness Within" while also lending her talents to commercials for brands like Apple, Nike, Dish Network and Dodge. As fate would have it, the traditional path for a new actress in Hollywood soon felt off to Tessa, inspiring her to let her acting talent manager go to free up her time and take a deep dive into the world of screenwriting. Tessa’s deeply rooted passion for cinema didn’t take long to open doors for her as a screenwriter as she was chosen to adapt Kate Adamson’s miraculous true story explained in the book "Paralyzed But Not Powerless" for the big screen.

While continuing to evolve as a performer, and now a performer/writer, Tessa honed her improv comedy skills by studying at UCB and showcasing her comedic versatility on the show "Barbee Rehab." To make ends meet as she furthered her education in the world of entertainment, Tessa worked nights as a model/bottle server in prestigious Los Angeles nightclubs where she found herself frequently tempted to accept dates with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Yet, a voice deep inside Tessa’s heart, told her to build a career completely on her own.

It didn’t take long for that voice to become a calling to evolve into a full-fledged filmmaker. With the advent of Apple’s first smartphone featuring a 4K camera, Tessa quit working in nightclubs to maintain purity of spirit and craft short films on her iPhone using limited budgets to experience firsthand what life is like for a majority of audiences. After learning how to surf her new rocky waters, Tessa began searching for the ultimate challenge. She started competing in timed filmmaking competitions to polish her skills as a filmmaker and discover how to create under extreme pressure. Tessa thrived under this higher level of pressure and began earning awards and accolades for each short film she created as the star/writer/director.

Remembering what professors said in film school about the lack of truly original films in today’s world, Tessa found herself becoming driven to earn a spot in textbooks. To simultaneously serve her passion for helping others, Tessa set out to create a movie that would inspires audiences to overcome their challenges, push beyond self-perceived limits and remind them of the power of giving 100%, 100% of the time. Tessa real life treacherous expedition to create her directorial debut feature film Cinema Rebel began by crafting the movie essentially backwards. Tessa used the self-made short films she created from 2017-2018 as the film's foundation then committed to embodying the main character, Daisy Blaine, both in front of and behind the camera in order to bring the world Hollywood's first real life movie magician.

Legend has it that from 2017 to 2023, Tessa spent the majority of her time offline, in solitude, working passionately by herself inside a studio where she slowly invented a new approach to the craft of filmmaking. Tessa was dead set on discovering if it's possible to make a full-length feature film essentially by hand prior to the mainstream public release of AI. As Tessa learned and executed all aspects of film production and post-production, she patiently built, frame by frame, pixel by pixel, second by second… what could be the world's largest performance by a motion picture artist of all time. Tessa spent months adding effects like depth of field before iPhone cameras were able to; and created, recorded and edited original sound effects using every day items as her foley tools. Tessa even built a post-production audio mixing suite by hand using metal poles, rubber sheeting, sound proof fabric and acoustic foam panels.

Tessa’s vision to empower audiences to believe in themselves helped her survive this seemingly impossible process and stay the course as the making of Cinema Rebel slowly became a creative obsession that took over her entire life for nearly 6 years. With a human brain and body operating in overdrive for this long, many worries were expressed by Tessa's close friends and family; but despite their concerns, Tessa stayed steadfast on this mission where she faced never-ending unknowns, chronic failures, relentless obstacles and a substantial period of time in total isolation. People even began nicknaming these chapters of Tessa's life as her sentence in "movie jail".

Several years later, after overcoming many painful moments where she was tempted to give up, Tessa finally finished the movie... making her attempt to wear over 70 filmmaking hats a success! In this moment of triumph Tessa discovered the inextinguishable power of the human spirit and champions the idea that everyone deserves to experience the feeling of achieving a goal, no matter how big or small; and no what stands in their way. As she puts it “the human spirit seems to be stronger than technology because it will never glitch or break down... unless we allow it too.”

After a short festival circuit around the world, Cinema Rebel went on to receive 18 award wins and nominations and is in queue for up to 6 Guinness World Record certifications. Tessa has high hopes that this daring true tale of the making of Cinema Rebel will help people not only believe in themselves but reinstate the importance of coming together as a community to motivate each other to become the best possible version of ourselves; and spark the dawn of a new era where we value authentic true art over artificial manufactured art.

To this day, Cinema Rebel has yet to be released to the general public and is now in process of being rebranded into a major motion picture titled Cinema Legend where new rounds of production set out to host one of the greatest A-list ensemble casts of all time. In addition to this picture, Tessa, Vital Spark and partners are working passionately to bring their slate of 10 motion pictures to your screen and elevate spiritual excellence around the world through the power of storytelling.

TESSA FARRELL

who is Tessa farrell?

TURNING MOVIE MAGIC INTO REALITY

“My dream now is to encourage companies and creators worldwide to meticulously protect and sculpt their content... and forever push the envelope in the creative realm by creating potent dynamic material that fuels spiritual excellence.”