Louis Alphonse van Gasteren was a Dutch film director, film producer, and artist. He was born in Amsterdam. He is the son of actor Louis van Gasteren Sr. and singer Elise Menagé Challa, and the brother of actress Josephine van Gasteren.
Biography
Van Gasteren trained as an electrician. He worked for the Dutch Polygoon newsreel company in Haarlem, Netherlands in 1949. In 1951 he started his own film production company Spectrum Film. He made his debut with Brown Gold, a film about cocoa and chocolate, in 1952. In 1983 Van Gasteren won the Dutch Film Critics Award for best documentary as well as the Golden Calf for best picture for . He received the Golden Calf a second time in 2003 for his documentary The Price of Survival. Van Gasteren was a visiting professor in the United States at UCLA and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. Van Gasteren lived in Amsterdam and was married to Joke Meerman. At the end of his life he was the oldest active filmmaker in the Netherlands.
Walter Oettinger
During the Second World War Van Gasteren was convicted to four years for killing Walter Oettinger, a German Jew in hiding. After the war Van Gasteren was pardoned, but when he claimed a special pension for resistance fighters, this was denied on the grounds that the killing of Oettinger had not been an act of resistance.
Filmography
A partial list:
1952 – Bruin goud – Documentary about cocoa and chocolate, shot on location in Ghana and the Netherlands, directed by Theo van Haren Noman. 90 min
1954 – Railplan 68 – Documentary about the nightly replacement of tram rails on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam, 15 min
1955 – Vliegende schotels geland – Surprising commercial for Albert Heyn's Boffie Coffee, run as film, 4 min
1960 – Stranding – Thriller, An international gang of bank-robbers escape to Ecuador on the ship, but after a shipwreck become stranded on the island of Terschelling, 90 min
1960 – Een nieuw dorp op nieuw land – Documentary about design, construction and first inhabitants of the village of Nagele in the newly reclaimed northeast, 25 min
1961 – Alle vogels hebben nesten – Documentary on the system-building as a result of the post-war housing shortage. 25 min.
1962 – Het huis - 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 - 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 Biafran War. 50 min.
1969 – Begrijpt U Nu Waarom Ik Huil? – A therapeutic LSD-session with a former inmate of a German concentration camp. 62 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.
1975 - Corbeddu – The first of three films about Sardinia. Can the bandit Corbeddu be regarded as the Robin Hood of Sardinia? 72 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 – – 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.
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 - Interview with Indian master Meher Baba, shot in 1967. 38 min.
2002 – In een Japanese stroomversnelling – a film concerning the role of Dutch engineers in Japan in the 19th century. 85 min.
2003 – The Price of Survival – A follow up of the 1969 filmDo You Understand Now Why I Cry?, about the children of the survivors of World War II. 56 min.
2005 – Het verdriet van Roermond – Four-part series on the execution of fourteen civilians in Roermond on December 26, 1944 and its consequences, 4 x 50 min
2006 – Het verdriet van Roermond – Short version of the four-part series, 90 min
2012 – Nema Aviona za Zagreb – Autobiographical drama/documentary against background of the 1960s, featuring interviews with Meher Baba and Timothy Leary. 82 min.
