At the Crossroads

At The Crossroads will explore the life of an aging gay blues musician in search of purpose and love. We live in a youth-obsessed society and sometimes forget the contribution older citizens have made and continue to make when given the opportunity. Our film will take a look at Bill Homans III aka Watermelon Slim’s complex life, celebrating what he has accomplished and what he is currently doing to make the lives of himself and others more fulfilling as an aging artist.

The film will also include issues of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community readily in the zeitgeist today, but more profoundly, it will include reflections from an elder’s perspective; a perspective that needs more representation. Coming out in one’s seventies is no easy feat. Coming out as a blues musician, after a lifetime of masquerading as a straight, often married man, is likely career-ending. The blues is arguably one of the most heteronormative, homophobic genres of music, and coming to terms with the realization that his chosen career for decades does not include space for his sexual orientation is heart-wrenching. He’s finally
ready to reorientate his path and expand beyond the rigid box in which he has lived and worked for too long. Slim’s dilemma provides the catalyst for him to leave the crossroads behind.