Ivan Fund’s “Dusk Stone” (“Piedra Noche”) is bowing its trailer in Variety on the eve of its world premiere at the Venice Lido where it participates in the Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori ) sidebar.

The Elle Driver international sales pick-up will also participate in the San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizontes Latinos and at Biarritz where it opens the French festival.

“Dusk Stone” turns on the mysterious disappearance of a young boy near his family’s beach house. His parents return nearly a year later to sell the house but as they’re packing up to move out, the father claims to have seen and encountered a strange creature that local fishermen have been talking about for years. He thinks it resembles the Kaiju, the mythical creature that his son created on his videogame console before he vanished.

Shot on a couple of Argentine beaches, the trailer opens on the grief-stricken parents, played by real-life husband and wife actors Marcelo Subiotto and Mara Bestelli, as they realize that their son has gone and are later perplexed that his video game, despite having been recovered from the bottom of the sea, continues to play the Kaiju game.

Chile’s Alfredo Castro, star of the 2015 Venice Golden Lion winner “From Afar,” who plays their real estate agent, tells them about the urban legend while the mother’s best friend, played by Maricel Alvárez (“Biutiful, “To Rome with Love”) arrives to give solace and help with the packing.

For Fund, “Dusk Stone,” his eighth feature, is the culmination of all that he has learned from making his previous films. “I have found a balance here that I didn’t feel I had in my other films,” he told Variety. “It’s a film I’ve always wanted to make,” he added.

Like in his past films, music is a key element in “Dusk Stone” where a lush orchestral score composed by Chilean Francisco Cerda is virtually another voice in the film as it drives the plot forward. “It was my first time working with a full orchestra and was quite a challenge,” said Fund who is a musician himself.

The original screenplay for “Dusk Stone” is by Santiago Loza, a distinguished filmmaker in his own right and longtime collaborator with Fund, as well as Fund and Martin Felipe Castagnet. It provided the cast with a story format instead of a script where their dialogue was included but also left ample room for improvisation.

“Dusk Stone” is co-produced by Buenos Aires-based Rita Cine, founded by Laura Mara Tablón, and Insomnia Films along with Chile’s Globo Rojo Prods. and Madrid-based Nephilim Prods.

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