No single ‘right’: value pluralism and moral ambiguity in recent Kazakh women’s festival cinema

This article examines how moral ambiguity is constructed in Aizhan Kassymbek’s Madina (2023) and Zhannat Alshanova’s Becoming (2025). Drawing on Isaiah Berlin’s account of value pluralism, it argues that the films create ethical tension not simply by withholding judgement or refusing narrative closure, but by showing how acting on one value can make another impossible to preserve. In both films, female agency is not presented as a simple move from constraint to freedom. The protagonists act within difficult circumstances, and each choice comes with consequences for the values and relationships they are trying to protect.