Bert Haanstra was a Dutch

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...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 and documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Haanstra was born in the town of Holten

Holten

Holten is a small village in the municipality of Rijssen-Holten in the Dutch province of Overijssel, with approximately 10,000 inhabitants. Holten is located in an ample-forested area, just south of the Holterberg. This hill, which is about 65m high, is part of the "Sallandse Heuvelrug" National...

 and became a professional filmmaker in 1947. He won international acclaim with his short documentary Spiegel van Holland / Mirror of Holland, for which he received the Grand Prix du court métrage at the Cannes-festival of 1951. During the fifties he made six films for Shell, among others The Rival World (1955) on insects spreading deadly diseases and how to fight them. In 1958 his documentary Glass

Glass (film)

Glass is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The entire film is about the glass bottle industry.-External links:*...

, a filming improvisation made in a glass factory, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject

Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...

. He directed several fiction films. Fanfare, a comedy situated in a small Dutch village, is still the Netherlands' second most popular film ever (measured at the box office), only surpassed by Paul Verhoevens Turkish Delight. Abroad however, Fanfare was hardly noticed. In several shorts and in long documentaries like Alleman / The Human Dutch and Stem van het water / The Voice of the Water Haansta reflected on The Netherlands and its inhabitants. All these films made him one of the most popular filmmakers in the history of Dutch cinema. The documentary Alleman was seen in the cinema by 20 percent of the total Dutch population. In the seventies and eighties Haanstra addressed a new subject. He made several films about animals. In the long documentary Bij de beesten af / Ape and Super-Ape (1973), for which he collaborated with Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal

Fransiscus Bernardus Maria de Waal, PhD , is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior in the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research...

 and Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, DBE , is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National...

, among others, he compared the behavior of animals and human beings. In total Haanstra received close to a hundred awards. He died in the town of Hilversum

Hilversum

is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...

.

Haanstra was Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau

Order of Orange-Nassau

The Order of Orange-Nassau is a military and civil order of the Netherlands which was created on 4 April 1892 by the Queen regent Emma of the Netherlands, acting on behalf of her under-age daughter Queen Wilhelmina. The Order is a chivalry order open to "everyone who have earned special merits for...

.

Filmography

• De Muiderkring Herleeft (1948)
• Mirror of Holland
  Mirror of Holland
  Mirror of Holland is a 1950 short Dutch documentary film directed by Bert Haanstra. It won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival....
  
  (1950)
• Nederlandse Beeldhouwkunst tijdens de late Middeleeuwen (1951)
• Panta Rhei (1951)
• Dijkbouw (1952)
• Ontstaan en Vergaan (1954)
• De Opsporing van Aardolie (1954)
• De Verkenningsboring (1954)
• The Rival World (1955)
• En de zee was niet meer (1955)
• God Shiva (1955)
• Rembrandt, schilder van de mens (1957)
• Over glas gesproken (1958)
• Glass
  Glass (film)
  Glass is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The entire film is about the glass bottle industry.-External links:*...
  
  (1958)
• Fanfare
  Fanfare (film)
  Fanfare is a 1958 Dutch comedy film directed by Bert Haanstra. It was entered into the 1959 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Hans Kaart - Geursen* Bernhard Droog - Krijns* Ineke Brinkman - Marije* Wim Van den Heuvel - Douwe* Andrea Domburg - Lies...
  
  (1958)
• The Manneken Pis Case (1960)
• Delta Phase I (1962)
• Zoo
  Zoo
  A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
  
  (1962)
• Lewis Mumford on the City, Part 2: The City - Cars or People? (1963)
• Alleman (1963)
• The Voice of the Water (1966)
• Evoluon
  Evoluon
  The Evoluon is a conference centre and former science museum erected by the electronics and electrical company Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1966. Since its construction, it has become a landmark and a symbol for the city....
  
  (1967)
• Return Ticket to Madrid (1967)
• Ape and Super-Ape
  Ape and Super-Ape
  Ape and Super-Ape is a 1972 Dutch documentary film directed by Bert Haanstra. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-About the film:...
  
  (1972)
• Doctor Pulder Sows Poppies (1975)
• Nationale Parken... Noodzaak (1978)
• Mr. Slotter's Jubilee (1979)
• Nederland (1983)
• Vroeger kon je lachen (1983)
• The Family of Chimps (1984)
• Kinderen van Ghana (1988)

Literature

• Jo Daems, Teder testament, de films van Bert Haanstra (1996)
• Hans Schoots, Bert Haanstra - Filmer van Nederland (2009)

External links

Bert Haanstra (official website) Bert Haanstra Compleet (DVD)

• http://www.hansschoots.nl (website of Haanstra biographer Hans Schoots)