Blaxploitation was a term first coined in the early seventies in the US to describe a number of action films largely made or produced by black actors or directors. Melvin Van Peebles, who stars along with Vanessa Myrie in Baltimore, produced one of genre's signature works. He wrote, produced, directed, scored, edited and acted in Sweet Sweetbacks's Baadasssss Song, an uncompromising take on contemporary black experience, liberally sprinkled with what many saw - at the time - as negative stereotypes of black people (pimps, pushers and prostitutes).

Despite the presence of Melvin Van Peebles Baltimore is not a blaxploitation project. Rather it appropriates the styles, gestures, language and iconography of blaxploitation films to create a new work that defies easy categorisation. Julien has been consistently interested in breaking down barriers between different disciplines and genres and Baltimore, like many of his other films, combines fictional narratives with documentary and film-art techniques. Excavating the common ground between art and cinema Baltimore draws on two distinct archives, that of the museum and that of the cinema, and in so doing asks the audience to consider a more complex reading of the terms high art and popular culture.