April 16 was an important day for independent cinema in India. For the first time ever in the 69-year-old history of the Cannes film festival, it was announced that two Indian films had been selected in Un Certain Regard, a section instituted in 1978 to showcase films with an original aim and aesthetic.

The first name on the list was an Indian film directed by debutante Neeraj Ghaywan called Masaan (Fly Away Solo). And a few moments later, came Gurvinder Singh's Punjabi film Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction). Chauthi Koot explores the aftershock of Indira Gandhi's assassination in Punjab while Masaan is a cross-section of stories set in Banaras. “We noticed a few years back,“ said Cannes director Thierry Fremaux, “a new Indian wave. A new generation of Indian filmmakers, not Bollywood and not Bengali but a third type of film which is inside the human society and going inside the homes and families, telling us not perhaps unprecedented stories but some really powerful things about the contemporary society in India.“

Just like Vogue's September issue signals what's on fleek every year in the fashion world, so it is with Cannes and films. “Being part of the Un Certain Regard is a recognition of an individual way of filmmaking, which is not derivative or run of the mill but which is trying to find a new way of expressing through cinematic means,“ says Gurvinder Singh, whose debut film Anhe Ghorey De Daan won multiple National awards in 2012.

The Cannes-India connection goes back to the beginning of the festival. Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar screened at the first edition in 1946. Since then it has functioned as a sort of Richter scale that picks up underground vibrations well in advance of an impending earthquake. From Satyajit Ray to Mani Kaul, Mrinal Sen, Goutam Ghose, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Murali Nair & Shaji N Karun, the festival has consistently screened films by directors who have often been labelled as being too esoteric in their own country.

Of course, Cannes did have a brief affair with Bollywood glitz when Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas screened out of competition in 2002 and Aishwarya Rai stepped out of a four-horse carriage decked out in kilos of gold and a sari, but these have been thankfully rare. Rai, who is also a brand ambassador for festival sponsor L'Oréal, has become a Cannes staple since then. Every year reams of newsprint are devoted to her red carpet appearance and oscillating weight. But those remain peripheral to the heart of Cannes which beats for film, and it's a testament to the festival that the high-decibel red-carpet frenzy never detracts from the quality of films being screened.

But it is the journey from the Croisette in Cannes to domestic theatres that remains a challenge. In the last four years, three feature films from India have made it to the Un Certain Regard section. Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan in 2010, Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely in 2012 and Kanu Behl's Titli in 2014. Though feted internationally, in India the response has been more muted. For all the critical acclaim it garnered, Udaan only grossed about Rs 3 crore domestically. Miss Lovely, which released in India two years after its Cannes screening, also found few takers and Titli is yet to be released. Ghaywan agrees that along with the acclaim at Cannes comes some unwanted baggage. “There is this opinion among a lot of distributors and media that if a film has made it to a festival it is not viable for the box office.“ says Ghaywan. But Indian directors don't have the luxury of ignoring the box office. “We don't have the kind of funds that the West enjoys. There it is completely funded. Here if I have made a film and it is going to Cannes, I also have to take care that it is appreciated by India and giving returns to my producers.“

There is also a concern that the indie movement has a major Hindi bias. According to Singh, “It is good that the revival is happening. But most of it is very Mumbai-centric and people who want to make films are moving to Mumbai. I am still looking to see strong individual voices from what used to be very strong filmmaking centres like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. All of the feature films that have gone to Cannes recently have been Hindi films. I think a non-Hindi feature film like Chauthi Koot is showing in the official selection after more than a decade.“

Also rare is an Indian film in the competition section. Even as India becomes a steady fixture in the Un Certain Regard, the competition section - which is the most prestigious at Cannes - remains out of reach. The last time an Indian film featured in it was over two decades ago in 1994 with Shaji N Karun's Swaham. Ghaywan says cultural differences may have something to do with it. “One of the reasons could be, and I take pride in it, is that as Indians we are inherently emotional people. Europe likes a more understated type of cinema. We wear our emotions on our sleeves. We are uninhibited.“

Is there an auteur-driven middle ground between European stoicism and India's emotional core? If there is, the Cannes festival will probably be the first to find it.