31 submissions have been received by RTCG as the country holds Montevizija, their first national selection show since 2008.
In Montenegro a total of 31 songs have been submitted to take part in Montevizija. A special five-member jury will narrow the submitted entries down to just five. These five entries will compete in the televised final of Montevizija on February 17 2018, in which public voting alone will decide who will represent Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon.
Some of the rules of the selection include:
- The competition is open to artists/composers from all over the world.
- Artists can submit up to 2 entries each.
- The text of the songs should be in Montenegrin
- The submission period concludes by mid-December.
This is the first time in 10 years that Montenegro will use a national final to select their Eurovision entrant. In the country’s debut in 2007, Montenegro used the national final “MontenegroSong” to select their first ever Eurovision entrant, Stevan Faddy with his song “Ajde Kroči”. A year later a national final was used to select Stefan Filipović, with his song “Zauvijek volim te” being internally selected afterwards. Since then, Montenegro have opted for internal selection.
This year Montenegro was represented by Slavko Kalezić, who placed 16th in the semi-final with his song “Space”. Since then, he’s gone on to take part in The X Factor UK.
Source: RTCG
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
Montenegro debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest as an independent country in 2007, and participated until 2010 when they withdrew for financial reasons. They returned to the contest in 2012, and since then have always chosen their entry internally. Montenegro failed to qualify for the grand final until 2014, when Sergej Ćetković and his song “Moj svijet”. Their best result came a year later, when Knez performed “Adio” in Vienna. They have never reached the top 10, with Knez reaching 13th out of 27 countries. Their most recent entrant, Slavko Kalezić, reached 16th in their semi-final in 2017 with their song “Space”.
