Munich - The 23th International Documentary Film Festival opens its doors next month with this year's festival to showcase movies about the Arab world, organizers said Friday.

The festival programme also includes movies from directors from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

A highpoint of this year's festival, which is Germany's biggest for feature-length documentaries, will be the premiere of Life after the Fall by Iraqi director Kasim Abid, which sets out the hopes, doubts and chaos of Iraq five years after the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Iraq is also a theme of Ghosts of Abu Ghraib from US director Rory Kennedy about the scandal surrounding the notorious prison complex near Baghdad.

A documentary, Up the Yangtze from Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, which tells the story of a Chinese family's battle to head off resettlement is to open the festival.

"The film questions in depth and in an unobtrusive way social relations in China," said festival spokeswoman Andrea Naica-Loebell.

Other documentaries to be shown include films about the Swiss author Max Frisch, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as well as Czech writer, human rights activist and key political figure Vaclav Havel. (dpa)