The Dependent Variables (Le variabili dipendenti), Lorenzo Tardella’s graduation film produced by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, is “Best Short Film” at the 68^th David di Donatello Awards. Members of the jury are Domenico Dinoia, Mauro Donzelli, Marzia Gandolfi, Francesco Giai Via, Paola Jacobbi, Maria Grazia Mattei, Claudia Panzica, Marina Sanna, and Maria Carolina Terzi. Among the five shortlisted in this category, mention should be made of Valerio Ferrara’s Il barbiere complottista and Francesco Romano’s Ambasciatori, both produced by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

The Dependent Variables world premiered in 2022 at the 72^nd Berlin Film Festival, section Generation Kplus, and went on to screen in over twenty national and international film festivals and earn several awards, including Best Film prize at Queer Lisboa 2022, section In My Shorts.

Tardella’s film is a reflection on the early teens and questions the meaning of intimacy through the lens of the experience of very young characters, Pietro and Tommaso, played by Simone Evangelista and Mattia Rega. The short was written by Mara Fondacaro and Elisa Pulcini along with Lorenzo Tardella.

Lorenzo Tardella’s The Dependent Variables is distributed by Première Film and available on MUBI https://mubi.com/it from February 18^th.

Synopsis
When does childhood end? What does intimacy really mean? Pietro and Tommaso are in their early teens. They meet in a theatre box while Vivaldi’s notes resound around them. It’s a first kiss. Should it be something else? That same afternoon, surrounded by the silence of the home walls, they will try and find out.

Director’s statement
We always get to the moment when we stop gazing at ourselves in the mirror and begin to look outward. What we cannot imagine, the first time that we do, is how difficult it is to find our eyes in those of the person in front of us. To be the same thing. To recognize ourselves in the mirror. This is what my short is about: the first confrontation with intimacy, at a time of life in which there are no rules, and all certainties can instantly collapse.