Isabella Rossellini's 'animal porn' films

Isabella Rossellini has always been comfortable in European films, but her latest role may be her most avant-garde yet: playing a sexually charged bee in a series of 'animal porn' flicks.

The Italian actress has written, directed and starred in 'Green Porno', a series of short films which explain the reproductive habits of a variety of creatures, including flies, spiders, snails and bees.

Part nature documentary, sex education tool, and children's television programme, the films last a minute each, and show Ms Rossellini, 55, in a series of puffy costumes explaining the ins and outs of insect copulation.

The films are reminiscent of Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask, only adapted for the animal kingdom, and with a more graphic script.

"If I were a male bee, I would just want to have sex," Ms Rossellini, appearing in the first of many large, squishy animal outfits - in this case as a bee, says. "I would mate (the female bee) in flight. My penis would break off, and would get stuck in her vagina like a cork in a bottle. I would die without my penis."

In another film - about snails - she appears in a snail costume and appears to point to the assexual nature of snail reproduction. "If I were a snail, I would hide my penis in my vagina. I have both," she says.

In a film about flies, Ms Rossellini detours briefly into flies' ability to land upside down - by virtue of the "hooks on their feet", and the way they suck their food up through a proboscis, before again returning to the topic of sex. "If I were a fly, I'd have sex several times a day," she says. "At any opportunity. With any female."

Ms Rossellini, who is perhaps best known for her role in Blue Velvet, the David Lynch film, told Reuters in an interview: "I never really say anything dirty. We talk about sex, but the terminology is not dirty. The film is principally humorous, and if anything else it's informative."

The films were submitted to the Cannes Film Festival last year, and were being shown at a mobile conference in Barcelona as part of an initiative to release short films that wouldn't otherwise be distributed via mobile.

Mo Film, which has the support of the the Hollywood actor Robert Redford, is partnering with a number of international film festivals - including Sundance, Locarno and Shanghai.

"People are bored of going to YouTube and seeing really low quality content on their phones," Peter Holden, the creative director of Mo Film, said.

To be eligible, films submitted to Mo Film must be a maximum of five minutes.