Rossellini shows animal mothers are not all ready to sacrifice themselves for their children

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Isabella Rossellini’s search for the meaning of maternal instinct in “Mammas” looks at nine animals where things like polygamy, lying and dying convince her that “anything goes.”

The program timed to air Mother’s Day on the Sundance Channel is just the latest offbeat offering from the model-actress, who gets in costume and plays the parts of the animals.

In “Mammas,” Rossellini dresses as a mother spider, wasp, hamster, toad, cuckoo, dunnock, oil beetle, piping plover and cichlid fish to show how each brings her young into the world. The shorts also launch on sundancechannel.com on Mother’s Day.

Rossellini says “Mammas” is suggestive, but the episodes are mostly for comedy and entertainment. The 60-year-old New Yorker believes they are also food for thought.

___

Online:

— http://www.sundancechannel.com

— http://www.wolfsonian.org