Women, location and aesthetics in African films

This article examines how margins can become privileged sites of resistance against various forms of exclusion, above all for young female characters. Some films show how the margins call into question the norm, since the characters are often ostracized precisely because they do not fit into the standard. While the centre is unique and almost univocal, the varied margins allow multiple subjectivities. This study of A Place for Myself will explore how the main characters’ positioning and agency are depicted by the camera’s angles and movements. Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s notion of ‘politics of location’, my aim is to analyse what I propose to call an aesthetics of location.