Udana Fonseka was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His father was a computer engineer and his mother is a theater actress. He was inspired to become a filmmaker at the age of eight, after watching Jurassic Park (1993).
Udana studied at the prestigious Royal College, Colombo. In 2004 he attended a film workshop held by Samy Pavel and in the same year he wrote, produced and directed Hope (2005), a short film about a victim of the 2004 Tsunami.
In 2009 he co-founded the production company Grindout Productions and a year later went on to direct and produce his first feature film Train to Kandy (2012), becoming one of the youngest movie producers from Asia.