A product of immigration, integration, and innovation, Sri Lankan born, Desh Amila, started from humble beginnings before realising his dream was in the West, and migrated to Melbourne, Australia in 2000. Desh has since pioneered his career as an entrepreneur, entertainer, filmmaker and educator on a global scale.
After graduating from Melbourne’s Deakin University with a Bachelor of Arts (Media Arts: Screen Studies and Photography) in 2005, Desh soon realised that this was merely his first step into a world of many successes, many more uncertainties, painful growths and profound realisations.
An event industry veteran with over 15 years of experience Desh Amila, produced his first event in 2005. Since then, he has produced a large number of events across Australia and New Zealand. Notably launching the genre-defining company “Think Inc.”, the world’s first intellectual touring organisation, which toured some of the greatest minds in the world to Australia and sold over 300,000 tickets between its inception in 2011 and 2018, when Desh sold the company and embarked on a new venture.
In 2011, Desh wrote, produced and directed his first TV show “Planet Urban TV”, an urban music-based series, with financial support from Film Victoria, which was eventually sold to ETV Sri Lanka. In 2019, he co-directed and produced the critically acclaimed feature-length documentary “Islam and the Future of Tolerance”. The film received funding from Screen Australia for late-stage development, raised closer to $150,000 from Kickstarter and received multiple philanthropic donations, including some via DAF. It has now secured a global distribution deal with 1091 (Formally The Orchard) and Torch films and Fan Forced. The film is now available to stream via Amazon Prime.