Haanstra became a professional Dutch documentary film maker 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 Film 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", a filming improvisation made in a glass factory, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.