Melvin & Jean: An American Story

2012· 59 min· Documentary

When Melvin and Jean McNair hijacked a plane from Detroit to Algeria in 1972 with their two babies on board, they called it an act of political resistance. The hijacking was also an act of desperation committed by two people in their early twenties who saw no other way to escape what they felt was the constant state of racial oppression in America. Living in Paris forty years after the hijacking and unable to return to the U.S., Melvin and Jean are still coming to terms with their crime and its lifelong consequences.

Director: Maia Wechsler