Cannes isn’t Sundance. The movies on offer aren’t generally genre horror box office surprises or heartwarming indie dramedies, and sometimes they’re not even sure-fire Oscar hopefuls.

But as several sales agents and distributors told us, Cannes is slowly shifting back to being a home for discovery. With the audience now unbothered by subtitles, distributors aren’t just looking for the next “May December” but the next “Anatomy of a Fall.” And when it comes to the package titles on the Marché du Film, buyers are demanding more than the latest Nicolas Cage shark movie.

The sources IndieWire spoke to believe there’s more quality than quantity among this year’s official competition sales titles and the packages being shopped to distributors. And that’s a good thing, even though there are still plenty of hot packages trickling in by the day and buyers already scooping up competition...