There is now evidence suggesting that watching movies usually provokes some sort of emotional response in the audience. There are even studies that claim that this response may differ depending on the type of film. For example, Grodal (2009) argues that the type of response provoked by mainstream narrative cinema is different from that elicited by avant-garde films. In visually impaired audiences, the emotional impact of the film is inevitably mediated by the Audio Description provided. In most countries audio-descriptive norms do not cater for variations between different types of films. There exists, therefore, the possibility that the emotional impact of the film could be affected or altered by the AD. This paper aims to explore possible differences in the emotional response of sighted versus unsighted audiences when watching an avant-garde film as opposed to watching two narrative ones. A pilot study is designed in which emotional response data are obtained by asking the subjects to fill in some self-response questionnaires. Our results indicate that the differences between both types of audience are more prominent for the avant-garde film than for the narrative ones.
