Maria Koleva was born in Sofia, in the then Kingdom of Bulgaria, and studied chemical engineering in the United States and Germany before emigrating to France in 1971.

Her 1982 four-hour film-book L'état de bonheur... permanent won the Grand Prize at the Belfort Festival and is recognized as representative of the political-shown-through-the-personal film-making style of the period.

She also made five films on Antoine Vitez featuring the French director conducting workshop sessions.

[2] In 1989, Koleva conducted a 45-day hunger strike to bring attention to the fact that independent film-makers were unable to obtain distribution on French TV.

After 1990, Koleva worked more in video and digital format than in film.