Isabella Rossellini delves into the sex lives of sea creatures

Isabella Rossellini, 56, the actress who has become no less weird with age, has been commissioned by the Sundance Channel to shoot a second batch of the Green Porno (in which she can be seen in photo), a short film series she conceived, wrote, starred in and co-directed. In the first series, premiered at the Sundance and the Berlin film festivals earlier this year, she explored and, more memorably, enacted the sex lives of a variety of insects and invertebrates, including the fly, the spider, the earthworm and praying mantis.

In the new movies, eight short films in all, Rossellini, the former wife of director Martin Scorsese, has turned her attentions to aquatic life, featuring the mating habits of marine animals, including the shrimp, squid, anchovy, barnacle, limpet, starfish, elephant seal, angler fish and Right whale.

Like the originals, the new films combine scientific accuracy with humour. However, the new pieces are designed to raise audience awareness of the environmental devastation wrought by human consumption and use of the sea, a particular hobby-horse of the actress.

Said Rossellini, who is best known for her role in David Lynch's Blue Velvet: "The secret to Green Porno is that they allow all of us to laugh but they also communicate true scientific information. Because of what I learned in doing research for this series I felt strongly that there needed to be an added environmental element to really inform people how delicate the futures of these creatures are."