“Temptation” star Anamaria Bartolomei is planning a multilingual year with projects spanning English, French and Romanian.
Valtolomei, who was born in Bacau, Romania and raised in Paris, won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her role in Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion-winning film The Happening. Since then, she has maintained a steady presence in French cinema, balancing blockbusters like The Count of Monte Cristo with auteur-driven projects like Bruno Dumont’s Empire and last year’s Cannes Critics Week opener Adam’s Wine, while steadily expanding her international footprint with Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 and Teodora Mihaly’s English and Romanian debut. “traffic”
She’s all set to hit the ground running this year, promoting Pathé’s two-part historical epic De Gaulle and her French turn in Fanny Liardard and Jérémy Trouil’s arthouse fantasy Les eu verts, before filming the American-era romance film Miles & Juliet. Valtolomei also has an as-yet-untitled Romanian project in the works, currently in final negotiations and aiming to shoot in late 2026. Valtolomei has not yet revealed the director of the project, but he has named Cristian Mungiu and Emmanuel Parvu as some of his favorite contemporary Romanian directors.
(Mungiu, in particular, wrote and produced Mihaly’s Traffic, and has just completed Fjord with Sebastian Stan, another immigrant-turned-international star closely associated with Romanian cinema. Stan will next appear in a feature by Berlin Golden Bear winner Radu Jude. On the arthouse circuit, all roads lead to Romania.)
Returning to France, Bartholomey will play a fictional French Resistance fighter in Antonin Baudry’s two-part drama “De Gaulle.” She describes the project as a vast and “very political” war story rather than a traditional biopic.
“What interested me most was the global scope and artistic ambition. This is an ambitious film with a huge budget, and I wanted French cinema to take those risks,” she says. The project has innovative visuals reminiscent of Christopher Nolan, and the theme of today’s liberation will resonate with young people in many countries. ”
She also praises the more artisanal visual aesthetic of Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Troil’s Les Yeux Verts. Valtholomei plays a young woman who journeys into her brother’s subconscious in order to wake him from a coma. “Their films are a mix of fantasy and dreams, and require a lot of effects and post-production work,” she says. “But each of those elements complements another and is very abstract in its approach.”
Valtholomei will next be seen opposite Damson Idriss and Xavier Dolan in Miles & Juliet. The film, directed by Bill Pohlad and produced by Mick Jagger, is a reimagining of the 1949 romance between songstress Juliette Greco and jazz legend Miles Davis, and is expected to begin production later this year.
“Their love story is largely unknown,” says Valtholomei. “While this story is so universal and continues to resonate today, it’s still rare to have a mixed-race couple on screen.”
“It also marks the emergence of two icons,” she continues. “Now they’re legends, but back then they were both in their 20s and just starting out. It’s important to portray the period and make it a true romance. Something hopeful, something wonderful, something that makes you dream.”
Valtolomei, who will be seen following “Mickey 17,” is looking forward to working in English again and hopes the role of Juliette Greco will give her the chance to sing. Still, she has stopped short of dreaming of a career in Hollywood, though she does have a deal with CAA, which packaged the film.
“Working on American projects is a bonus,” she says. “As a foreigner, it’s generally difficult to get your first starring role or avoid conventional roles. But if it’s something you want, you work towards it. And it happens — or it doesn’t, and that’s fine. After all, America isn’t my home country.”
