What We Do
Established in late 2007 by Bill Bilowit and Grela Orihuela, Wet Heat Project LLC develops and produces original films and events that reveal, document and personify the artists, art professionals, and art experiences shaping the contemporary art world in the Project's home city of Miami and beyond.
Wet Heat Project presents its shortform documentary films in non-subscription websites and as closed-circuit TV programming at art-themed venues, and its feature-length films with screenings at museums, collections, educational and art organizations, and on DVD homevideo. Special local and traveling events are designed to bring together artists and art students, art professionals, and the greater viewing public.
What We've Done
BILL BILOWIT
Director
Bill Bilowit was raised in Greenwich Village by theatre-career parents. As a teenager, he worked as a documentary 16mm film cameraman and assistant editor on films about NYC socio-cultural events including the historic Bicentennial Celebration in downtown Manhattan.
In the late 1970s he designed and directed model animation and special effects scenes for the banned-from-NBC-TV cult movie "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video" (a landmark of lo-fi technology 3/4" video-to-35mm film theatrical release) and for the Saturday Night Live mega-sketch "Attack of the Atomic Lobsters", conceived and performed by writer (now Senator) Al Franken and the original SNL cast.
Through the 1980s Bill worked as art director on Claude Gagnon's award-winning docu-drama "Kenny (The Kid Brother)", and for iconic genre horror movies such as "C.H.U.D." (production designer), "Sleepaway Camp" (production designer/special effects coordinator), "Hell High" (art director), George Romero's "Creepshow" (special scenic effects artist), and "The Prowler" (set dressing).
In 1988 Bill founded The Show Works with partner Grela Orihuela, for which he wrote and directed more than a hundred studio & location marketing / promotional videos for Sony Corporation in Tokyo (new consumer electronics product and format introductions) and Canon USA in New York (new product and technology introductions).
In 2002 he founded Tareco Pictures with Grela Orihuela to produce feature and short films, documentaries, and music videos.
Bill's independent filmmaking / writing collaborations with Miami-based artists include projects with Pablo Cano, Xavier Cortada, Loriel Beltran, sleeper, and Richard Haden.
GRELA ORIHUELA
Producer
Grela Orihuela is Cuban by birth and grew up in Astoria, Queens.
She graduated from the NYU Film School Fine Arts program, and in the early 1980s worked directly for two legendary, iconic men in marketing and promotion: Bloomingdale's fashion director Kal Ruttenstein (coordinating special film productions and fashion events) and rock n'roll impresario Bill Graham (coordinating special events and benefit concerts).
In the mid-1980s Grela was a producer at WABC-TV news, the executive producer at Telemundo Network, and an independent producer of Spanish-language broadcast programming.
In the late 1980s she moved from television into corporate media, founding The Show Works with partner Bill Bilowit to produce large-scale global corporate events, entertainment, trade shows, videos and multi-media. She has produced more than a hundred marketing and promotional projects, such as international dealership conferences for Sony Corporation in Paris, Vancouver, Hawaii, Mexico and Los Angeles, with in-venue concerts by music artists such as Tony Bennett, Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias, and Cyndi Lauper.
In 2002 she founded Tareco Pictures in Miami with Bill Bilowit to produce feature and short films, documentaries, and music videos.
Grela's independent Miami-based projects include producing the "Feijao com Arroz" video art exhibition of Projecto Brasil- Arte Contemporanio - Apex Brasil for the Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paolo in 2010, curating the "Home: Dream Home" 32-artist group exhibition at Praxis International Art in 2011, and producing and curating the bi-coastal video art exhibition "Electric Wedding" in collaboration with the Los Angeles Art Association and the Miami Beach Cinematheque in December 2011 during Art Basel Miami Beach.