WASHINGTON?Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's documentary, "South of the Border," on the new leftist turn in South America, highlights the Silverdocs Festival opening in Washington on Monday.

Stone, known for Hollywood hits such as "Wall Street" and "Platoon," made the documentary based on interviews with leaders Raul Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and others.

The film, which examines the current political and social attitudes in South America, is among 102 documentaries from 54 countries being screened at the festival.

Co-sponsored by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, the festival now in its eighth year will welcome including "Freakonomics," an adaptation of Morgan Spurlock's best-selling book on human behavior.

Documentary producers Alex Gibney ("Enron"), Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me"), Eugene Jarecki ("Why we Fight"), as well as Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing ("Jesus Camp") combined their efforts for this opening feature.

Scandinavian films will also get a good showing this year, including Joonas Berghall and Mika Hotakainen's "Steam of Life," where naked Finnish men from all walks of life lounging in saunas speak from their hearts, revealing their most intimate stories.

Of the screenings, there will be six world, one international, three North American, five US and 10 US East Coast premieres, as well as six retrospectives and one outdoor screening.

War and peace figure prominently at this year's Silverdocs, including "Budrus" and "My So Called Enemy," which center on the seminal Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and "War Don Don" about a war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

A centerpiece of the festival is the East Coast premiere of "Waiting for 'Superman'" directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") about the rise and fall of the US school system. The film won the Sundance Film Festival's audience award this year.