Naomi Ackie (Sorry Baby, Mickey 17) and Alison Oliver (Wuthering Heights, Saltburn) have just wrapped on Luna Carmoon’s sophomore feature To Make Ends Meat.
Also starring Éanna Hardwicke (Saipan, The Sixth Commandment) and Armande Boulanger (The Returned, Eiffel), the film follows three women — all in debt to despicable men, their pasts and each other — who find themselves bargaining to survive in the only language these men seem to understand: consumption and violence. Goodfellas is handling international sales and will launch the film at Cannes, with True Brit nabbing U.K. and Ireland distribution rights.
To Make Ends Meat is the British director-writer’s second film, shot in her hometown of London — her debut Hoard premiered at Venice Critics’ Week in 2023 where it won three prizes. The movie went on to receive international distribution and landed Carmoon a BAFTA nomination for outstanding debut in 2025.
“This film has come from the belly of my soul, of all things, tar and family,” said Carmoon. “From my grandmother’s experiences in Newington Lodge, to my mother Toni and the cleaning houses she took me to where darker things lingered, to teddies and chicken farms. So much of my family and our memories seep deeper than you’d think. I cannot think of a more prevalent time than now to paint and stitch and weave to screen, it is my rage that has fuelled this. The weatherings of being a woman and how you are cannibalised by systems, by men, women and then by debts we sometimes write ourselves into because we believe we deserve it so.
“This has been made with all my blood, figuratively and yes, physically, of all of me. I hope I know it will rupture, splinter and cry to us all when it is stitched together.”
To Make Ends Meat reunites her with Hoard producers Helen Simmons (Erebus Pictures) and Loran Dunn (Delaval Film) with Cheri Darbon and Chloe Culpin as co-producers. Hélène Louvart (La Chimera, Rocks) serves as DP.
Financing comes from BBC Film, BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), True Brit, Goodfellas, Mother, ProdCo, Arts Alliance, Affine Films, Cofiloisirs and Blush Film.
Screen International was first to break the news.
