Humbert Balsan, born Humbert Jean René Balsan (Arcachon, August 21, 1954 – Paris, February 10, 2005) was a French film producer and chairman of the European Film Academy. He was renowned for securing financing and distribution for diverse and often challenging films. In February 2005, Balsan was found dead in the offices of his production company, Ognon Pictures, in Paris. He was known to have suffered from depression, and killed himself by hanging. Born in Arcachon in 1954, Balsan was part of France's upper class as a member of the Wendel family, an industrial dynasty. He received a Jesuit education in Amiens and later studied economics in Paris. In 1973, Balsan's film career began when he was cast as Gawain in Robert Bresson's Lancelot Of The Lake (1974). While Balsan continued to act in small roles in friends's films (he played a pirate in Jacques Rivette's Nor'west (1976)), his interest turned to production. He assisted Bresson on The Devil, Probably (1977) in 1976 and lensed a documentary portrait of French music teacher Nadia Boulanger the following year. Balsan became a producer in 1978 with the filming of Pierre Kast's Le Soleil en Face (Face to the Sun) (1980).