The film director and distributor Antony Balch (London, 1937 – 1980) is best known for his collaborations with the novelist and poet William S. Burroughs. They met at Madame Rachou’s Beat Hotel in Paris in the early 1960s, and afterwards went on to collaborate on several short films. In the 1970s, Balch was the director of Secrets of Sex and the horror film Horror Hospital. As a distributor, he was simultaneously involved in many art, horror, sex and exploitation films.