Born in Cairo to Greek parents, she invented with Katerina Thomadaki the “cinema of the body”, a non-narrative language of film and visual art, and co-signed her entire work with her as a “double author” — never one without the other. Their archive entered the Bibliothèque nationale in 2012.
The story
Born in Cairo on 23 July 1948 to a gynaecologist father and a biologist mother, the future film-maker Maria Klonaris grew up in cosmopolitan Alexandria, studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and read English literature at university.
A stage designer, she met Katerina Thomadaki: together they founded the Theatre of the 4 in Athens, then settled in Paris in 1975.
There they created “corporeal cinema”: a non-narrative, cine-plastic language carrying, in their own words, “the political dimension of female identity”. Every one of their works is co-signed as a “double author” — never one without the other.
Their cycles ran for thirty years: The Corporeal Tetralogy, The Unheimlich Cycle, The Hermaphrodite Cycle, The Angel Cycle. Alongside them Klonaris studied Egyptology at the École pratique des hautes études, then took a master's degree and a postgraduate diploma at the Sorbonne.
In 1985 they founded the association ASTARTI, to bind art to feminism; the Klonaris/Thomadaki archive entered the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2012. Maria Klonaris died in Paris on 13 January 2014; her ashes rest in Division 36, in a cinerary chapel.
The grave
A cinerary chapel that bears no inscription. No name, no dates, no profession: the co-founder of the “cinema of the body”, whose archive entered the Bibliothèque nationale in 2012, rests without being named. The case is not isolated at Père-Lachaise, but cremation joined by complete anonymity is: the niche of Jules Walter is the only other example.
On site, do not miss
A cinerary chapel with no inscription at all, on the avenue des Acacias. Nothing names the filmmaker: it is one of the most silent graves in Division 36.
Visitors' questions
Where do Maria Klonaris's ashes rest?
In Division 36, avenue des Acacias, first row, in a cinerary chapel that carries no inscription at all. You have to know the spot: nothing there names the film-maker. The Division is that of Nadar and Edmond About.
NadarWhat is corporeal cinema?
The language she invented with Katerina Thomadaki from 1975 on: a non-narrative, cine-plastic cinema carrying, in their own words, “the political dimension of female identity”. Thirty years of film cycles came out of it.
Françoise JanicotWhy did they sign together?
Because they refused the single author: every one of their works is co-signed as a “double author”, with no division of roles. The archive they left to the Bibliothèque nationale in 2012 carries both names, as their films and installations do.
Geneviève ClaisseWhere did Maria Klonaris come from?
From Cairo, where she was born in 1948 to Greek parents, both of them doctors, and from the cosmopolitan Alexandria where she grew up. She went on to study at the Athens School of Fine Arts and to read English at university, before settling in Paris in 1975.
Enrique Gómez CarrilloAudio guide to Père Lachaise: the best unusual guided tour!
Discover the secrets of the most astonishing tombs
the audio guidefrom€6.99