Semi-Final 5 Selectia Nationala 2018 winners

Romania‘s broadcaster TVR aired the final and fifth semi-final of Selectia Nationala 2018 from Sighisoara tonight. Now, we have the last three acts who qualified for next week’s National Final. They are The HUMANS, Teodora Dinu, and Dora Gaitanovici. Let’s break it down!

Twelve acts competed in Sighisoara in Romania’s Semi-Final 5 tonight, and all the five judges — Marian Ionescu, Ilinca Bacila, Nicu Patoi, Liliana Stefan, and Viorel Gavrila — gave feedback to the acts, with Ilinca playing the role of Cezar Ouatu and Diana Dumitrescu’s co-host from the jury table. While Ilinca focused her coments on staging, Marian judged the vocals, Viorel commented on the song structure, Nicu focused on the instrumental part, while Liliana judged the lyrics.

In the end, the judges’ three qualifiers from the fifth semi-final were your second favourite Teodora Dinu, your third favourite The HUMANS, and Dora Gaitanovici. They will advance to the National Final next Sunday, where they will face off against the other 12 finalists for the ticket to Lisbon.

Selectia Nationala: Semi-Final 5 Qualifiers

1. The HUMANS – “Goodbye” (58 points)

2. Teodora Dinu – “Fly” (50 points)

3. Dora Gaitanovici – “Fara tine” (42 points)

Unfortunately, your favourite act Sergiu Bolota failed to advance to the final. While the judges praised his song, they also said that he sounded off-key.

Full results of Semi-Final 5

1. The HUMANS – 58 points
2. Teodora Dinu – 50 points
3. Dora Gaitanovici – 42 points
4. Sergiu Bolota – 28 points
5. Denisa Trofin – 28 points
6. Iliana – 21 points
7. Manuel Chivari – 20 points
8. Alexandru Ungureanu – 17 points
9. SAVE – 14 points
10. Evermorph – points
11. Maria Suciu – 2 points
12. Tomer Cohen – 1 point

The fifth and last semi-final of Selectia Nationala 2018, which took place in Sighisoara’s Mihai Eminescu theatre, opened with a medieval show by Terra Medies Order of Paladins. The interval act was pop-rock band Directia 5, who performed on a separate stage outside, in the main public square of Sighisoara. Their mini-concert was prerecorded the night before, as guitarist Marian Ionescu was on jury duty tonight.

Today was host Cezar Ouatu’s birthday. The countertenor turned 37. All the acts sang “Happy birthday” on stage, at the end of the show.

The other 12 finalists, chosen by the jury in the other semi-finals, are:

  • Alexia & Matei – “Walking On Water”
  • Echoes – “Mirror”
  • Eduard Santha – “Me Som Romales”
  • Jukebox feat Bella Santiago – “Auzi cum bate”
  • M I H A I – “Heaven”
  • Rafael & Friends – “We Are One”
  • Erminio Sinni & Tiziana Camelin – “All The Love Away”
  • Xandra – “Try”
  • VYROS – “La La La”
  • Claudia Andas – “The One”
  • TIRI – “Desert de sentimente”
  • Feli – “Buna de iubit”

This has been the last semi-final of Selectia Nationala 2018 . In 2018, which marks 100 years of Romania’s existence as a unified state, TVR staged five semi-finals in five different cities under the slogan “Eurovision Unites Romania”.

On 25 February, at the grand final in the capital Bucharest, the winner will be crowned solely by the public, via televote. Ilinca and the judges will only be able to watch on!

Did the right acts make it through? Are you excited by the National Final lineup? Who are your favourites? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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18 Comments
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Fayn
Fayn
6 years ago

IMO, the quality of this semi-final’s roster was absurdly superior to the others.

AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

Finally the semis are over! Such a long process!
This one I think was the weakest. I can hardly find a song I really like.
The qualifiers are fine, but I’m not a super fan of any of them.

I wanted Sergiu and Iliana to the finals I have to say. I liked them both.

Geo
Geo
6 years ago

FELI is definitely gonna win and she’ll go to Lisbon. She’s huge in Romania nowdays and she’s got an impressive fanbase.

Chiara
Chiara
6 years ago

Jukebox is my favourite by far but I’m trying to accept Feli as the winner since it’s pretty sure that she will win. Not a huge fan of her song though :/

Colin
Colin
6 years ago

My favs: 1. Feli, 2. Jukebox, 3. Xandra, 4. Mihai

No idea who the public will go for, though! There is no one clear favorite, like last year. Romanians, which song seems to create the biggest buzz over there?

RMNA
RMNA
6 years ago
Reply to  Colin

It’s most definitely Feli’s game to win,being 100% televote it will be a huge surprise if she doesn’t get it.She is a well established name in Romania for quite some years,she does have a loyal fanbase.She has a strong team behind her,3 days ago they released her video on YT and it’s allready at 675K views and climbed to top 5 in romanian trending videos.They started to promote her as a ESC contender and there are plenty of other known artists campaigning for her in social media for example.Also very important that she is liked by the romanian eurofans and… Read more »

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
6 years ago

Hate to say it but Walking On Water is the easiest to remember. The rest do not stand out so much. I think Feli is ok, too. A real shame that Safari is out.

7th heaven
7th heaven
6 years ago

Feli or MIHAI. It will be fine if it’s MIHAI. He lives for that, it seems.

AurelianTamisan
AurelianTamisan
6 years ago

Now that was the first semi-final I don’t agree at all with the juries. I can’t believe that Iliana was so robbed. She had a song that is working so well with the auditory and beside other artists that had such type of songs, she was able to sing it. Dora Gaitanovici had an amazing performance, she was able to transform a pretty unimpressive song into something remarkable on stage. The other 2 otherwise were too overrated in my opinion. I didn’t get the hype from the Humans (not a bad song, but I didn’t get anything amazing beside the… Read more »

Monique
Monique
6 years ago

Iliana was rubbish, she wasn’t robbed. Sergiu Bolota was robbed, he should have qualified instead of Dora…

KESC
KESC
6 years ago

Walking on Water for the win!

AzeriChico
AzeriChico
6 years ago

My favourite is Feli with “Buna de iubit” in the Romanian NF. But I have this weird feeling that MIHAI will win. ):

Giorgio
Giorgio
6 years ago
Reply to  AzeriChico

LOL please no

Sabrina
Sabrina
6 years ago
Reply to  AzeriChico

Same here. Feli is my favorite, but I feel MIHAI will take it.

RMNA
RMNA
6 years ago
Reply to  AzeriChico

Don’t worry about that at all.Mihai will have the votes of his loyal followers but it’s not enough for him to fight for the win.He just doesn’t have the right package this year,he barely even made out of the semi.

Matthew ESC
Matthew ESC
6 years ago

So happy queen dora made it!

Shevek
Shevek
6 years ago
Reply to  Matthew ESC

Same here! Dora FTW!

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

Tragic. This semi had some good songs.
The Humans: Great song and perfomance. Deserved;
Dora Gaitanovici: Cute song, but it goes nowhere;
Teodora Dinu: Overrated as FiK! Saying that this is ready for ESC…please xD

Anyway, I hope Romania gets rid of these juries next year, they’re just a bunch of old rags that don’t know nothing about Eurovision. I think they even compared that guy (who sang terribly) to Led Zeppelin, afff.

Iliana, SAVE and others had better songs.