While their classmates endure the visit to the concert with pranks, Pietro and Tommaso get closer to each other in the box. During the playing of Vivaldi’s composition, their lips touch. When Tommaso invites Pietro to his home shortly after, the tension is still in the air. What did the kiss mean?

Loaded glances are shared and discarded in this simmering coming-of-age miniature from Italian filmmaker Lorenzo Tardella. With a pair of remarkable performances from its two young leads, The Dependent Variables delicately captures the oceans of feeling that explode from a single, tentative kiss.