George Jaques opens his second feature at a summer camp for kids who have had cancer, and the title tells you the tone he wants: warm, a little wry, not a disease movie. Sunny Dancer premiered on 13 February 2026 as the opening night film of the Generation 14plus section at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Crystal Bear. It runs 106 minutes. Bella Ramsey plays Ivy Pritchard, 17, ten months in remission from leukaemia, and the film’s bet is that her reluctance is funnier and truer than her grief.
Trailer, via True Brit Entertainment.
Bella Ramsey and the CRF Camp Bunk
Ivy’s parents, Karen and Bob, sign her up for CRF Camp, a four-week retreat for minors with cancer. She does not want to go. She goes.
At camp she meets Patrick, the president, played by Neil Patrick Harris; Tristan, the outdoors lead; Lucy, the therapist; and Brenda, the nurse. Her dormmate is Ella, who has a crush on Tristan and a stated plan to lose her virginity before the summer ends. Ella tries to fold Ivy into the senior campers — Archie, Jake, Maisie, Ralph — and Ivy keeps her distance.
That distance is the engine. Ivy is not a saint and not a mascot. She picks a verbal fight with a guest speaker, gets admonished by Patrick, calls the camp a joke, accuses him of keeping a “pedo wall” of former campers’ photos, storms off, and comes back to apologise. It is the messiest sequence in the film and the one that earns the rest.
The Fairground Brawl and the Wall of Photographs
The group visits a fairground. Locals harass them. Archie punches a person for offending Ella, and the night becomes a brawl.
Back at camp, Patrick sits them down. Ivy tells him he took the president job because it makes him feel powerful. He answers by explaining the wall: the photos are campers who have died, including his youngest son. He tells her there are sick children who would trade places with her in a second. It is the film’s turn, and Jaques does not soften it.
Ramsey holds the scene without asking for sympathy. Harris plays Patrick’s patience as something worn thin and chosen anyway.
Jake, the Island, and Ralph’s News
Ivy and Jake, played by Daniel Quinn-Toye, become a couple. She talks him through an anxiety attack. They have sex during an island survival activity.
The next morning Ralph says he has to go back to hospital the following day. The group decides to act as if nothing is wrong, and the movie settles into its last act.
What Ruby Stokes Does With Ella
Ruby Stokes gives Ella the film’s best comic timing, playing a girl performing confidence she has not finished building. Earl Cave’s Ralph is the quiet centre of the back half. Jasmine Elcock, Conrad Khan, Jessica Gunning, James Norton, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Louis Gaunt and Josie Walker fill out the roster, and James Blunt appears as himself.
Jaques wrote and directed. The tagline is “You’ll wish you were there,” which is a strange promise for a film about children with cancer, and mostly the right one.
Numbers Behind Sunny Dancer
- Release year: 2026
- Director and writer: George Jaques
- Runtime: 106 minutes
- Genres: Drama, Comedy
- Premiere: 13 February 2026, Generation 14plus opening night, 76th Berlin International Film Festival
- Award: Nominated for the Crystal Bear
- Lead: Bella Ramsey as Ivy Pritchard
Dates for Sunny Dancer
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 13 February 2026 | World premiere, Generation 14plus, 76th Berlin International Film Festival |
| Crystal Bear | Nominated |
Why the Camp Scenes Work
Sunny Dancer is a coming-of-age comedy that keeps its hardest material off-screen and its characters on it, and that choice will divide people. The film is not interested in the ward. It is interested in the four weeks after, when a 17-year-old has to learn how to be a person again in a bunk with strangers. That is the part worth watching, and it is the part Jaques gets right.
The weakness, in this paper’s view, is shape. The fairground brawl, the wall reveal and Ralph’s hospital news arrive close together, and the film’s biggest emotional beats crowd each other. The middle stretch, where Ivy drifts and the group does small acts of rebellion, feels looser than it needs to be, and a tighter edit would have let the wall scene breathe.
What holds it is Ramsey. Ivy is prickly, funny and often wrong, and the film never punishes her for it or redeems her too fast. Patrick’s answer — that other sick children would want her position — lands because the movie has spent an hour making her unlikeable enough to need it.
This is not a film that will change how anyone thinks about cancer. It is a film about a teenager who is bad at being grateful and good at being alive, and it earns its title.
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