Stuff I Love: Green Porno
One late night a few months ago, I was browsing through my free movies-on-demand and stumbled across a series of peculiarly pervy-sounding short films starring Isabella Rossellini, called Green Porno.
About thirty seconds into watching one of my favorite actresses scamper around in a giant spider costumer, I gasped!
Rossellini was reenacting the mating rituals of various bugs!
I devoured all eight films and was enthralled; I had to see more.
Luckily for me, season two (which is devoted to marine life) was available on http://www.sundancechannel.com. I shrieked my way through every episode. It was like being a sixth grader in health class when they put on that cartoon about getting your period; I hadn’t had so much fun learning about reproduction in years.
I also gained a new found respect for nature.
The series began in 2008 and currently airs on The Sundance Channel. It is conceived, written, and directed by its star, Isabella Rossellini.
In this Salon interview with the actress, Rossellini explained her creative process in developing Green Porno for Sundance:
The first series I did on animals that I knew, that were in my garden and I had studied — I could just lift a stone and find my earthworms. I wanted animals that everybody knew. We did the same for the sea creatures with the starfish and barnacle and clams, everything that people know. And the third series that comes out in the fall is again about fish, but this time it’s called “Bon Appetit Green Porno.” It is about animals we eat, but again it has sea animals, because I found an incredible accomplice in a marine biologist called Claudio Campagna.
I get the information from books, but then to verify that I really understood it — when we do the costume, is it plausible that he has antennae like this? — it’s nice to have a real scientist collaborating.
Season three will focus on farm animals and I can’t wait to watch!
About The GREEN & Green Porno
In March of this year, Sundance Channel announced a new multiplatform initiative to raise awareness of green choices. One of the network’s cornerstone initiatives of the year, THE GREEN, presented by Robert Redford, launched on Tuesday, April 21st at 9pm with the debut of an original series “Eco-Trip: The Real Cost of Living” featuring eco-adventurer David de Rothschild, the Australian series “Carbon Cops’ at 9:30pm followed by the television premiere of the acclaimed documentary film Flow: For The Love of Water at 10pm. Isabella Rossellini’s short film series “Green Porno” launched its second season on sundancechannel.com on April 1, 2009.