Vanja Radovanović won tonight’s revived edition of Montevizija and as such will represent Montenegro at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. This happened after a tight national final with only five acts competing.
Earlier this week, Montenegrin broadcaster RTCG published short snippets of the five lucky finalists that had been chosen from 31 submissions received. As Montenegro already succeeded in Eurovision Song Contest with Balkan ballads, they hope to repeat this success after two years of staying in the semifinals.
The members of the jury who chose those finalists are two singers (Ismeta Dervoz and Vladimir Maraš) and three composers (Kornelije Kovač, Dejan Božović, and Slaven Knezović).
Let’s take a look at the songs and the live performance from Montevizija 2018.
The Songs
Nina Petković – Dišem
Nina is the first one to perform. We may translate its title as I Breathe and it is the winner of our poll here on EuroVisionary. Dišem is a more uptempo song, compared to the other finalists. It is not vocally easy, but still, Nina delivered the song only with a few tones that were out of tune. Nina wears a black glitter coat with a cape. She dropped it off and four male dancers joined her on stage.
Vanja Radovanović – Inje
Vanja is together with Nina one of the two finalists who composed their entry themselves. But unlike Nina, Vanja did it completely alone. Hoarfrost as we can translate the original title Inje is a typical Balkan ballad. String quartet joined Vanja on the stage. We may connect this entry to the songs by Knez or Sergej Ćetković.
Ivana Popović Martinović – Poljupci
Ivana brings a classy black dress with a little bit of extravaganza on the stage. Kisses would maybe deserve more stylish dress though. But even though, the love ballad is very likable and well sung. Nothing else distracts us from Ivana’s performance so we can focus on her vocals on point.
Katarina Bogićević – Neželjena
Neželjena is translated as The Unwanted. But it is definitely not the song that’s unwanted, because it sounds modern even though it is also a ballad. It has a nice beat to the song and Montenegrin language suits the song really well. Katarina is flawless and also very beautiful. She wears a simple pink dress. Maybe this is the song that may win Montevizija 2018?
Lorena Janković – Dušu mi daj
Lorena looks like a princess in her light blue dress. That also counts for the song. It is a romantic ballad that could be easily taken from a Disney fairytale. On the LED background we see a lot of stars throughout the performance. The title is translated as Give Me Soul. After this performance, we wouldn’t complain about giving it to Lorena.
The Results
In Montenegro, a jury had been responsible for picking the five finalists. The members of the jury are two singers (Ismeta Dervoz and Vladimir Maraš) and three composers (Kornelije Kovač, Dejan Božović, and Slaven Knezović).
In the final, it was however 100% televoting who decided the winner. First, TOP 3 of the televoting was announced for the superfinal. The winner was Vanja.
| Artist | 1st Round | Superfinal |
| Nina Petković | OUT | – |
| Vanja Radovanović | TOP 3 | 1st |
| Ivana Popović Martinović | OUT | – |
| Katarina Bogićević | TOP 3 | 2nd |
| Lorena Janković | TOP 3 | 3rd |
Poll
Do you think Montenegro picked the right song? Vote in the poll to let us know who your favorite was.
The show
In the beginning, we saw a video of the jury in the process of choosing the TOP 5. They also played a short recap of the previous Montenegrin participants. An interesting fact was the calculation of an average Montenegrin candidate, in the rules of height, weight, age, and sex. A fun fact was a photo collage of all previous representatives together.
After all the participants performed their entries, the hosts opened the televoting and Slavko Kalezić brought us into Space in his 2017 Eurovision entry. In the middle, he continued by another of his songs. The voting countdown opened after Slavko’s performance for another 13 minutes. It sounded like there is no audience as nobody applauded during the show. The string quartet from Vanja’s song played their string versions of past Eurovision songs.
After the TOP 3 was revealed for the superfinal, all three entries – Vanja, Katarina, and Lorena – performed their entries for the second time. During these second performances, the voting was already opened. After them, the string quartet continued with the cover versions of other Eurovision songs. Sergej Ćetković sent a video greeting and sung a refrain of his Eurovision entry Moj Svijet. The countdown opened again for the same time window as during the first round of voting.
Before the voting closed, also Knez performed his entry from Vienna – Adio. Then we saw a fake report from the final voting from May in Lisbon where Montenegro topped the voting and won. The scenes from the possible future after the Eurovision victory continued. A dream or a prophecy? Who knows, but let’s be honest, seeing that could be at least interesting.
Montenegro at the Eurovision Song Contest
Since their debut at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007, Montenegro managed to qualify for the final only twice. With Sergej Ćetković in 2014, and also in 2015 with Knez. Both of those two qualifying entries were sung in Montenegrin and maybe that is the reason why this year, all five finalists were performed in their native language.
With no final two years in a row, the pressure is on tonight’s winner. Last year, Slavko Kalezić finished 16th in his semi-final, third to last. In the video below, remind yourself of his performance.
