“There will be wristbands,” decides George Jaques, leaning over a marble kitchen island, snacking on dried mango. We are on a bucolic farm in Kent when the writer-producer-director is rolling through his marketing plan for his forthcoming film, Sunny Dancer. T-shirts and totes? Maybe. Live musical performances? Sure. Making the cast canoe down the Thames? Definitely.

It’s mid-April and the sprawling lavender fields outside the cottage windows are not quite yet in season, but they make for an appealing vista all the same. Inside the farmhouse, the kitchen speaker has been entirely commandeered by cast members Earl Cave and Conrad Khan. They have installed themselves as de facto DJs, cycling through underground rap (there’s a lot of Fakemink) and dancehall remixes between photographs, fittings and glam.

George wears blazer, Magliano. Wool tank top, cupro shirt, and wool trousers, Lemaire. Tie, Dunhill. Vintage hi-tops, Rokit.

Andrew Nuding

We are here for the aforementioned Sunny Dancer, Jaques’s ensemble-cast brainchild that follows six teenagers in remission at “chemo camp”, which he has been working on for nearly five years. At 26, the Londoner has already amassed a CV that tends to invite the noun “wunderkind”. A former actor who founded his production company at 16 – “People might say, ‘Where did this kid come from?’, but I’ve been doing this for a long time” – he has since produced plays, short films and now two features. Sunny Dancer is his biggest project to date. “We really bled for this production,” he says. Shooting in just six weeks, to a strict budget and an even stricter schedule, it “was one of the hardest things I’ve ever put together. The scale of the film is massive for a British indie.”

From left: Daniel wears tuxedo jacket, Coach. Sweater, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Pinstripe trousers, Magliano. Earl wears wool suit, cotton/silks shirt, and tie, Givenchy by Sarah Burton. Conrad wears jacket, Magliano. Henley top, Wales Bonner and John Smedley. Leather trousers, Miu Miu. Leather loaders, Dior.

Andrew Nuding

Yet the origins of Sunny Dancer are entirely personal. Jaques’s mother had cancer when he was growing up and in the years since he has spent time working with the Teenage Cancer Trust, meeting teenagers whose lives had been abruptly interrupted and changed forever. What stayed with him was not just the gravity of their circumstances, but their refusal to be flattened by it. They were mischievous, irreverent and manifestly continuing on with life even when reckoning with their own mortality. “On the wards, you’d see kids rocking up for chemotherapy in Ed Hardy jeans and Jordans, racing with their IV drips down the corridors,” he says. “No one is thinking, ‘Why aren’t you in a hospital gown?’” That joie de vivre – rather than illness itself – is the crux of the film.

Bella wears rugby shirt and embroidered silk trousers, Conner Ives.

Andrew Nuding

At Sunny Dancer’s centre is Ivy, played by Bella Ramsey, a 17-year-old in remission who is, quite pointedly, not interested in being anyone’s idea of brave. She is angry, at her parents, at the world, at the fact that life has continued elsewhere while she has been confined to hospital wards for the better part of a year. Ivy’s parents, played by James Norton and Jessica Gunning, decide that what their daughter needs is four weeks at a summer camp for child cancer survivors – “Where kids can kid,” as the slogan insists (to which Ivy responds: “No fucking way”). She arrives at camp sceptical but leaves changed forever, thanks to a tightknit, ragtag group of new friends, played by a who’s who from cinema’s emerging new Brit pack: Ella (Ruby Stokes), Jake (Daniel Quinn-Toye), Ralph (Earl Cave), Archie (Conrad Khan) and Maisie (Jasmine Elcock).

From left: Jasmine wears tweed jacket, tweed miniskirt, and minidress with chiffon bow detail, McQueen. Boots, Ann Demeulemeester. Bella wears wool sweater, poplin shirt, shorts, and socks, Prada. Ruby wears blazer and draped shirtdress, JW Anderson.

Andrew Nuding

“I harnessed my inner 17-year-old by harnessing them for the first time, really,” says Ramsey, now all of 22. For half their life, the Nottingham-born actor has been on screen, whether in HBO’s Game of Thrones or The Last of Us – or now series two of The Celebrity Traitors – and so didn’t experience typical teenagehood. Word of Sunny Dancer came through Ramsey’s inbox just like any other project would, but it initially raised eyebrows. “It was a ‘summer camp comedy about cancer,’” they remember with a chuckle. “I was like, ‘How does that work without being cringe or really depressing?’” Thankfully, a read of the script “tore down any misconceptions”, and the fact it was a low-budget independent production, so different to their mega-budget television projects, made them no less inclined to do it. “The size of a project has never mattered to me,” they say.

From left: Daniel wears houndstooth jacket and cargo jeans, Dior. Bella wears padded jacket and trousers with leather calf detail, Louis Vuitton.

From left: Conrad wears herringbone jacket, Dior. Jacquard sweater and silk tie, Dries Van Noten. Shirt, Magliano. Tuxedo trousers, Wales Bonner. Ruby wears wool jacket, checked silk dress, and underskirt, Chloé

Andrew Nuding

Ruby Stokes is Ella – Ivy’s flirty, purple-haired roommate who is desperate to lose her “V plates”. “I would like to be friends with her at school if I went to school with her,” Stokes tells me, shielding her eyes from the golden-hour sun. Jaques wrote the role with Stokes in mind, following their collaboration on his first film, Black Dog. When I suggest the word “muse”, she blushes. “I was floored. I was so taken aback and humbled by it,” she says, hand on heart. For Jaques’ part, he “wanted to write her the most amazing role that I can”. Although Ella is ostentatious, “she has light and shade to her as well”. All of the kids do: they are in remission with wild leases of life, but still living with the mental and physical weight of diagnosis and rigorous treatment.

Daniel wears wool sweater, gaberdine trousers, and silk cravat, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Leather shoes, John Lobb.

Andrew Nuding

Through Ella, Ivy is drawn into the wider friend group, a modern Breakfast Club of sorts (John Hughes’ 1980s teen classic was certainly on Jaques’ moodboard). They’re all in their 20s but play convincing teenagers. There is Jake, played by an ocean-eyed Glaswegian, Daniel Quinn-Toye, instinctively kind, brooding and Ivy’s first experience of romance. “When you come so close to thinking your life could be over at such a young age, and then suddenly you’re expected to go back to normal life, what Jake is struggling with is like, ‘How do I just pretend that never happened?’” says Quinn-Toye, who has not long wrapped on Tom Ford’s forthcoming Cry to Heaven.

From left: Earl wears wool coat, Benaissa Majeri. Cotton shirt, With Nothing Underneath. Jeans, Ann Demeulemeester. Conrad wears coat with rosette detail, Simone Rocha. Jasmine wears sweater, shirt, tie, pleated trousers, and belt, Moschino. Ruby wears cashmere jacket and embellished organza top, Dior. Jeans, Levi’s.

Andrew Nuding

Conrad Khan’s Archie is watchful and “nerdy”. “He loves camp. It’s his favourite part of the year,” says Khan, a previous Bafta rising star nominee who memorably starred in County Lines. Meanwhile, Ralph, played by Earl Cave, who has appeared in everything from Dune: Prophecy to The Chronology of Water in a nearly decade-long career, operates on dark humour and cigarettes, and was largely “a mixture of myself and what George had written”, he says. Maisie, with her tarot cards and soft-spoken certainty, is played by newcomer Jasmine Elcock (she booked the job after one screen test) and “really cares for the people around her”. Or as Khan puts it: “They’re all quite gluey.”

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Looking back, Jaques is somehow in disbelief at how he managed to assemble six of Britain’s most talented young stars, to say nothing of several high-profile cameos (the film is stacked with familiar faces). Give it a few years and it’s easy to imagine the film being revisited with a faint disbelief – how so many soon-to-be familiar faces ended up in the same place at the same time. But for now the mission is clear: “We are releasing Sunny Dancer in the summer of all the biggest studio movies. We are going to try and make it the biggest indie of the year,” he says, smiling.

Main image: From left: Daniel wears twill coat, Donegal jacket, shirt, gaberdine trousers, and tie. Conrad wears bomber jacker, wool/cashmere roll neck, and trousers. Bella wears leather jacket, shirt, tie, and twill trousers. All Celine. Jasmine wears dress and belt, Simone Rocha. T-shirt, Simone Rocha and Adidas. Ruby wears leather gilet, wool tank top, cotton shirt, and shorts, Marni. Tights, Calzedonia. Earl wears velvet jacket and velvet jeans, Lanvin. Wool tank top, Dries van Noten. Cotton shirt, With Nothing Underneath. Photographs: Andrew Nuding. Styling: Harry Lambert. Hair: Sophie Jane Anderson. Make-up: Bea Sweet. Tailor: Nafisa Tosh. Production: Amelia Studios. Digital artwork: She Post Pro. Set Design: Harry Stayt.