[1] Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Rodriga was the third child of Daphne Mary (Billie) and Albert Thomas (Bertram) Read.
[2] Her father was a pianist arranger of the British Dance Band Era, playing with Bert Ambrose and Henry Hall (bandleader), among others.
Rodriga's career began in Sydney in 1974 at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where she was trained in production management and film editing for both drama and documentary.
"[12] Cairns argues that Rodriga's Trial Run was the more daring of the two films as it focused "not on the unknown, external danger to women, which the thriller uses most potently, but on threats within the family.
This pioneering series was conceived by actor-writer Fiona Samuel as a response to the lack of challenging female roles in New Zealand television.
While teaching screen production and screenwriting at Murdoch University, Rodriga directed her third feature film, Teesh and Trude (2002) starring Linda Cropper, Susie Porter, Peter Phelps and Bill McCluskey.
Strong humanity and even a faint sense of optimism emerge in the final reel as the women assert themselves against the innate bullying and objectification that has been their lot and downfall.
It isn't Ken Loach or Mike Leigh but it's in that ambit and the acting is very gritty - Linda Cropper's Trude and Susie Porter's Teesh radiate desperation that is almost palpable and Peter Phelps, as the blustering no-hoper Rod, delivers a penetrating observation of a type that is frighteningly accurateIn 2010, Rodriga wrote, directed and produced her fourth feature film myPastmyPresent, shot on location in the Margaret River region of Western Australia.