Sanja Ilic balkanika-beovizija-2018
Serbia, Mladen Luki?, 1

Earlier this year Beovizija — its rebooted national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest — took Serbia back to the final after a one-year absence. And today national broadcaster RTS has confirmed its participation in Eurovision 2019 and made clear it’s sticking with the Beovizija format.

They made the announcement on Twitter, using the #Beovizija hashtag.

The representative will be chosen through the national final Beovizija. The system of voting at Beovizija will be the same as the last year — 50% juries, 50% public vote.

In order to determine a lineup for the final, RTS will organise an anonymous pre-selection. Songwriters and artists have until November 1 to submit their songs.

After that a specially organised committee will evaluate the songs without knowing the composer or performer and will then come up with a list of finalists.

The emphasis on the anonymous quality of the selection of songs may stem from controversy that erupted last year.

The final results of Beovizija always draws its share of drama, whether it’s the voting methods or the criteria by which Radio Television of Serbia chooses the contestants. In 2018 the same issues sprang up regarding the victory of Sanja Ilic and Balkanika.

The controversy began the moment the list of participants was announced. Balkanika, the much-experienced group led by well-known musician Aleksandar “Sanja” Ilic, immediately emerged as the favourites for the win, with some even claiming the victory was fixed for them from the start.

One of the strongest reactions came from Danijel Pavlovic, who competed at Beovizija with the song “Ruza sudbine”. He openly attacked Ivana Peters, the composer of Serbia’s 2016 entry and a member of the jury, saying that she deliberately gave him a low score to make sure Balkanika won.

Drama aside, Beovizija 2018 was among the highest quality of all national selections leading up to Eurovision 2018. It stoked fan interest in the contest and drew a lot of social media commentary.

Eurovision winner Marija Serifovic was less impressed and made that clear on a Serbian chat show.

“Beovizija looked a bit scary, a bit funny, a bit bizarre to me. I really believe that in this country we have fifteen decent singers that should compete there and fifteen decent authors that can write fifteen decent songs for those artists.”

Sanja Ilic and Balkanika definitely were the best that night. The only act that really made sense there. […] The only question here is what kind of selection those songs had passed through. What was the criteria?”

“All in all, I think we can do so much better than that.”

Are you excited that Beovizija is back? What acts do you want to enter? Let us know down below!

 

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Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
5 years ago

Haven’t heard of them since May, I’m glad to see they finally recovered from the shock of qualifying with that travesty of a song. May Bopvizija 2019 serve us a deserving winner.

Graph
Graph
5 years ago

Can you please explain to me why Nova Deca was a “travesty?” I seriously never understood criticisms like this of the song.

Jo.
Jo.
5 years ago

I think we will see a returnee this year.

Ezz
Ezz
5 years ago

absolutely can appreciate such a diverse and authentic national final that is Beovizija. I mean it would be good if good quality song writers and songs like Serbia were sending 2007,2008,2012 would be used which is what I imagine the beautiful Serbian language to sound like. Serbia just need to keep the traditional elements to their music, bring excellent performers, because I believe they are going in a right direction.
cant wait for them next year, give us what you really got

Henry
Henry
5 years ago

Can they at least sing live ? Nova Deca was 80% playback, it was so funny when the brunette girl dropped her mic and she continued singing, plus in Eurovision Nevena the blonde one didn’t harmonize the wailing sounds with Danica because she couldn’t obviously. the two side girls were clearly there just to take up space. The guy was great. (The two girls have great voices btw, they just didn’t shine)

West
West
5 years ago
Reply to  Henry

This argument again? Yeah, she drop the mic – that’s why for a short moment you can’t hear her voice at all at the end of the song, not untill she reaches for the mic to sing the last note. I also like that in one video you can hear a soft *thud* as the mic finally drops to the floor.

gom98
gom98
5 years ago

I’m excited because I enjoyed Beovizija 2018 i just hope there’s more good songs coz there were really only 4-5 songs that were ESC ready

pp77
pp77
5 years ago

Svatovi, Pesma za tebe was better than Nova deca. And after all, Maja Nikolic was right , they sang in Beovizija with help from recorder backing vocals of singer of stage. They did n t sound so good on Eurovision stage with one more female singer.

Denis
Denis
5 years ago

The program itself wasn¨t bad, it was the song selection that was weak. Nova Deca deservedly won because it was the best of a bad bunch.
With better songs for 2019 the selection could work! Why not more modern songs and show a modern side of Serbia?

milosh
milosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Denis

Because unfortunately RTS still thinks that Eurovision is the competition where the selected song literally needs to scream TRADITION… I hope that someday that will give the chance to the modern beats as well (if they even know what is modern nowadays…)

Loin dici
5 years ago
Reply to  milosh

Because they did. 2015 was the start of it, then 2016 came, and in 2017 the modern beat failed to make an impact. Bringin back the tribal beat was a smart choice.

milosh
milosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Loin dici

they TRIED to be ”modern”, but they didn’t do it the right way. rts composed all the songs and chose the vocalists, instead of giving freedom to the artists to be involved in the process…

Loin dici
5 years ago
Reply to  milosh

Well, other countries also tried to be modern with internal selection. 1. Azerbaijan sent seemingly modern entries… until you realized their songs are internally selected and, yes, made by Kontopoulos or a Swedish team (except for 2008). 2. Bulgaria, on the other hand, came with distinctively honest sound until 2013, and 2016 afterwards you got a bunch of commercial, Americanized pop. Nothing new with being modern with internal selection. But fortunately, it’s a step forward for Serbia to bring back Beovizija and be traditionally original (if it was meant to), since this is the original goal of having ESC —… Read more »

Eee Pee
Eee Pee
5 years ago

Not my favourite national final but I celebrate all country’s at Eurovision! The more the merrier!!