He worked for the Dutch Polygoon newsreel company in Haarlem, Netherlands in 1949.

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 Hans: Het Leven Voor De Dood (Hans, Life Before Death).

[1] Van Gasteren was a visiting professor in the United States at UCLA and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University.

[2] During the Second World War Van Gasteren was convicted to four years for killing Walter Oettinger, a German Jew in hiding.