Louis Alphonse van Gasteren (Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, 20 November 1922) is a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 director and documentary filmmaker. He is the son of the actor Louis van Gasteren Sr. and the concert-singer Elise Menagé Challa.

Biography

Van Gasteren studied electronics and became a sound engineer. On the advice of the director Alberto Cavalcanti

Alberto Cavalcanti

Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...

  he became trainee as a sound-effects man at Épernay Studios in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and worked for the Dutch Polygoon

Polygoon (newsreel)

The Dutch Polygoon-Profilti was a well known cinema newsreel company in the Netherlands from 1919 to 1987. It started with weekly news items in the Dutch movie theaters and lasted until 1987 when it finally surrendered to television news journals, the NOS Journaal being the most popular.The company...

 newsreel company in Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1949. He made his debut with Brown Gold, a film about cocoa and chocolate in 1952. In 1951 he started his film production company Spectrum Film. In 1983 van Gasteren won the Dutch Film Critics Award for best documentary as well as the Golden Calf

Golden Calf (award)

The Golden Calf is the award of the Netherlands Film Festival, which is held annually in Utrecht. The award has been presented since 1981, originally in six categories: Best actor, Best actress, Best film, Best Short film, Culture Prize and Honourable mention...

 for best picture for Hans: het leven voor de dood (Hans Life Before Death). He received the Golden Calf a second time in 2003 for his documentary The Price of Survival. http://www.louisvangasteren.nl/Engels/Templates/page02.htm

Selected filmography

• 1961 - Alle vogels hebben nesten (All Birds Have Nests) - Documentary on the system-building as a result of the post-war housing shortage. 25 min.
• 1962 - Het huis (The House) - Short film concerning a house which is demolished at the same time it is built, conceived by intercutting two time periods. No dialogue. 32 min.
• 1963 - Mayday - Documentary about the successes and failures of rescues at sea, 20 min.
• 1964 - Er is telefoon voor u (There's a Phone-call for You) - Documentary about the effects of the telephone in the Netherlands. 46 min.
• 1964 - Jazz and Poetry - 14 min.
• 1965 - Out of My Skull - Early Dutch experimental film, made during a stay as visiting professor at Harvard University. 15 min.
• 1968 - Report from Biafra - Documentary concerning the war in Biafra. 50 min.
• 1971 - Report from Europe - Film concerning the structure of the European community
• 1973 - On ne sait pas - Portrait of a French country woman. 13 min
• 1974 - Multinationals - Documentary concerning the role of multinational ventures
• 1975 - Do You Get It no.2 - Second of a series concerning perception and interpretation. Louis analyzes film footage of a policeman directing traffic and construction workers with shovels who try to make themselves immortal by their actions when they notice the presence of the camera. 13 min.
• 1976 - Salude e libertade - History and culture of Sardinia. 52 min.
• 1980 - Wirbula flow forms - Film concerning the water art of John Wilks. 10 min.
• 1983 - Hans Het Leven voor de dood (Hans Life Before Death) - A documentary/feature on the life of the young composer Hans van Sweeden and those who knew him intimately. Won Golden Calf and Dutch Critics Award in 1983. 155 min.
• 1989 - Een zaak van niveau (A Matter of Level) - 1000 years of Dutch water managementand hydro civil engineering. Golden Camera Award Chicago, Sony Video Award, Film Prize from Amsterdam fund for art, Special Commendation Prix Futura Berlijn. 56 min.
• 1994 - Why Do Pigeons Home? - An experiment with mobile pigeon lofts, registered at the campus of the University of Utrecht, 30 min.
• 1997 - Beyond Words
  Beyond Words
  Beyond Words is a 1997 documentary film directed by Louis van Gasteren.Shot in India partly in 1967 in 35mm film and partly thirty years later in 1997 in video, Beyond Words is one of only three or four films ever shot of the silent master Meher Baba that include synchronized sound and the only...
  
  - Interview with Indian guru Meher Baba, shot in 1967. Only professional color 35mm film ever shot of Meher Baba. 30 min.
• 2002 - In een Japanese stroomversnelling - (In Japanese Rapids) a film concerning the role of Dutch engineers in Japan in the 19th century. 85 min.
• 2003 - De prijs van overleven (The Price of Survival) - related to the children of the survivors of the second world war, 56 min.

External links

• Official website
• Netherlands Film Festival at the Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...