India, June 13 -- Not very often, at the Cannes holy grail, does cinema generate as much social media buzz as Schiaparelli gowns. Rarely does a Punjabi film do so.

A film written and directed by Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Mehar Malhotra, Parchave Masya Raatan De (Shadows of the Moonless Nights), a Punjabi-language short film about claustrophobia and chronic wakefulness inside a cramped Mumbai flat, was this year's Indian toast there.

Punjabi films appear to be globetrotting because, just about a week later, on May 30, another Punjabi-language film, this one set in rural Punjab, quietly claimed the spotlight at the Angelika Film Center in East Village, New York, at the New York Indian Film Festival as the annua...