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There are more than a few Latinos who still speak Ladino.

In fact, much of the dialogue in "Like a Bride," featured in the Latino Film Festival of Marin, is in the Judeo-Spanish language of the Sephardim.

The 1993 film depicts both Ashkenazi and Sephardi life in Mexico, following the lives of two women under pressure from their communities to marry young. (The title refers to the saying "I'd like to see you as a bride.")

"'Like a Bride' is going to be a big surprise for many people," said Sylvia Perel, founder and executive director of the festival, which runs through Nov. 12 in Marin, San Francisco and Berkeley.

"Many people don't know that there are Jews in Mexico. Even for Latinos it is a surprise."

The fact that there are Jews hailing from Latin America is certainly not news to Perel. She is one.

Perel immigrated to the United States in 1981, escaping the dictatorial conditions of "the dirty war" in her native Argentina. Intellectuals, journalists, artists and anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time were possible targets of government-sponsored beatings, torture and killings.

The often-random nature of the violence was a source of constant anxiety for the citizens of Argentina.

"It was very, very erratic, so the kind of life you had there was with a lot of fear," she recalled. "I was a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, and one day two of my best friends and colleagues disappeared. They just never came back. That's when it hit me that it was very close. That's when, as a family, we started to think of leaving."

A second-generation Argentinean and a member of the nation's fairly large Jewish community, Perel never felt she was persecuted because of her religion. But, she says, Argentine Jews knew better than to wear their religion on their sleeves.

"To tell the truth, when I got here I was surprised that Jews were so up front, so openly Jewish and straightforward in the way they presented themselves," said Perel. "There, you didn't do that. You didn't show your presence. In Argentina it was pretty evident that being Jewish wasn't a good thing."

Perel had been a professor of art history in Argentina, but she always had an equal, if not greater, interest in the world of film. She and her husband, Leonardo, produced and directed a 1972 documentary covering a Buenos Aires political art exhibition. The last footage, to the Perels' surprise, was of the police breaking up the festival.

Settling in San Rafael, Perel discovered that when it came to cultural events, Latinos were invisible in Marin County. Working with a group of friends, she launched the Latino Film Festival of Marin in 1997 on a rather limited scale. But an overwhelmingly popular response has enabled the festival to grow rapidly, and even serve as an umbrella organization for a number of related side projects.

Working with filmmaker Joel Menel, Perel initiated a video program for teenagers. In three years, the program has produced seven films, and one 18-year-old student has just sold her short video film to HBO. The festival has established relationships with several colleges and universities including Dominican University, Stanford, and Sonoma State, where Perel works with members of the anthropology department to produce films.

Meanwhile, the number of films submitted to the festival has grown exponentially since its 1997 inception. These days, masses of films from all corners of the earth find their way to Perel.

"I have hundreds and hundreds of entries every year, not only from the U.S., but also from all of Latin America and Europe," said Perel. "So I have an incredible library of videos. We would like to use that material in a way that could benefit more and more people. Here in San Rafael, we have started an outreach program, bringing films to the Canal area where many Latinos live."

The film festival showcases the richness of Latino life and aims to shatter conventional stereotypes of what it is to be a Latino. Perel proudly points out that while "Like a Bride" has been seen at several Jewish film festivals, including San Francisco's, this will be its first showing at a Latino-oriented festival.

"We're trying to prove that Latinos come in many shapes and colors," she said. "In this country and especially in California where we've had all these anti-immigration politics, it's important to have something like this to show the other side of the story, the creativity and artistic qualities of Latin America and Spain."