Rickards' graduation film (London Film School) was Azure (2002), a loose adaptation of Sello Duiker's novel "Thirteen Cents". She has written and directed for worked for television and corporates in South Africa and the UK. In June 2007 she completed her PhD in film studies (UCT) and currently teaches in the UCT Film and Media Dept. She first made "Land of Thirst" as a television series which was broadcast on SABC in 2008.