Spectrum Film

More than thirty years ago, Louis van Gasteren made the documentary BEGRIJPT U NU WAAROM IK HUIL? about a therapeutic LSD session that professor Jan Bastiaans did with a traumatised ex-prisoner of German concentration camps. The patient died in late 2000 at the age of 81. He left a wife and three children. Poignant conversations with the widow and youngest son, and excerpts from letters from the other two children reveal that a concentration camp syndrome can also inflict deep wounds in those who have not personally experienced it.

The work of Leiden professor Bastiaans on dealing with the trauma of war victims attracts the attention of filmmaker Louis van Gasteren. He decides to make a film about the psychotherapeutic treatment with LSD of a former concentration camp prisoner in the clinic of Bastiaans. Patient Joop is arrested in September 1941 and begins a long hellish journey through various camps, until he is liberated by the Russians. When he returns to his wife, he has become a completely different man. Joop suffers from nightmares and is incapable of normal human contact. With two cameras, Van Gasteren records approximately six and a half hours of the first treatment that Joop undergoes with Bastiaans (four more will follow later). Special attention is paid to details: Joop's hands, the sweat on his forehead, a tear running slowly down his cheek. Van Gasteren reduces the recordings to more than an hour.

A retrospective of events in director Louis van Gasteren’s life from 1964 to 1969, filmed by him in that period and reflected on from his vantage point over 40 years later at the age of 90.

In a fragmented, non-chronological series of images, a grand villa in Bloemendaal becomes the silent witness to the lives of two generations between 1900 and its demolition in 1950. Without dialogue, the film moves through moments of birth, love, adultery, violence and death, allowing the history of the house and its inhabitants to emerge through memory-like fragments.

On 22 May 1962, Warffum in the Dutch province of Groningen became the last place in the Netherlands to be connected to the fully automated telephone network. Combining documentary footage with staged scenes, the film follows people in different parts of the country and shows how the telephone had become woven into everyday life, while marking the completion of a major national technological project.

The municipality of Nagele came about entirely on the drawing board and is an international symbol for the makeability of the Netherlands. Van Gasteren became fascinated by the Nagele project, and followed it from the drawing board and models to the construction of this new community. The final result is the film A New Village on New Land from 1960 – the year in which the first residents moved into their new, modern homes. Among the early pioneers in Nagele were many farmers who were to cultivate the newly reclaimed land.

In Rotterdam, Baas (Lex Goudsmit) sells a batch of fake diamonds to a gang of international con-men. They pay in dollars: a suitcase full of banknotes is sent on a ship from Rotterdam to Hamburg. The wife of one of the gang members (played by Josephine van Gasteren – sister of director Louis) accompanies it to keep an eye on things. But the ship strands off the island of Terschelling and a race ensues between Baas, the gang, the shipowner and the insurer to get to the ship first and secure the case of money.

Footage of a sunny village square in Sardinia leads to humorous, philosophical reflections on reality and the role of the ‘objectively recording’ documentary maker. Van Gasteren sees the square as a backdrop in his film, and the chance passers-by as extras. Then, as a ‘director of reality’, he gives an ironic commentary on what he sees. “For a moment I thought, from what source of information am I thinking up what I see. Or, did I just see exactly what I thought.”

With a focus on the everyday life of a gay couple, and featuring interviews with a number of gay people, the film gives an account of the difficulties faced by this minority.

Fifty years after making A New Village on New Land (1960), Van Gasteren and co-director Joke Meerman return to Nagele. What has Nagele become? He interviews residents and local officials and sees that over the course of fifty years, this model village has changed dramatically. The world turned out not to be as makeable as previously thought, and adjustments have had to be made on all fronts. The homes were too small, social cohesiveness is under strain and the original ideas, based on ideals, seem outdated. Van Gasteren also gets architects such as Umberto Barbieri and architectural historian Ed Taverne to speak, looking back at the work and ideals of their predecessors.

Short documentary about the construction of tramlines in the centre of Amsterdam

Short film documenting a performance by poet Ted Jones in combination with music by the Peter Kuiters Modern Jazz Group.

When Margaret threatens to crack down on juvenile delinquency during a fifth-grade class election, three school bullies back their own candidate, Tyler, a new kid reluctant to run. With help from slick campaign manager, Lewis "the Loser" Stanley and friend Stu, Tyler takes political power to new heights as the class deals with corruption and impeachment, courtesy of revenge-minded Russ Thoreau.