Sunny Dancer

Seventeen-year-old Ivy is ten months into remission when her parents sign her up for a summer camp — a camp for young people who have been through the same thing. Ivy calls it "chemo camp" and does everything she can not to enjoy it. And then she does: a group forms, alliances and attractions take shape, and by the end of the summer it turns out that surviving and living are not the same thing. There are no hospital scenes in the film, no bald children, no doctors — the director ruled them out from the start.

Jaques's rule wasn't an abstract decision. He was fifteen when his mother was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, and he has been an ambassador for Teenage Cancer Trust ever since. Visiting the wards, he says, what he saw was that "cancer is the least interesting thing about these young people." The idea came together when the editor of his first film, Black Dog (2023), told him she'd had cancer as a child and had gone to camps like this — her stories went into the script. A consultant haematologist advised throughout. Jaques cites The Breakfast Club and Lady Bird as reference points; the six-week shoot took place in spring 2025 at an outdoor centre in Scotland, near Loch Lomond.

Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us) plays Ivy — Jaques deliberately wanted to put them in a stripped-back world after all those enormous ones, somewhere it could only be about the acting. James Norton and Jessica Gunning play the parents and Neil Patrick Harris the camp leader; among the young cast are Daniel Quinn-Toye, Ruby Stokes, Earl Cave, Conrad Khan and newcomer Jasmine Elcock. The score is by Este Haim (of Haim) and Zachary Dawes, and James Blunt turns up as himself in one scene.

The film opened the Generation 14plus section at the 76th Berlinale and competed for the Crystal Bear. British critics largely took to it: the Guardian found that "the film has buoyancy and sunshine" and that Jaques "executes a smart misdirection-twist," while Screen Daily wrote that it "wraps its heavy themes in a peppy, accessible package." The Hollywood Reporter's critic called it uneven but fitfully charming.