October 10, 2020 - As Jutarnji list unofficially finds out, the selection for the Croatian Eurovision Song Contest "Dora" will be held on February 13, 2021, and the competition for new songs starts soon.

Croatian Radio Television (HRT) has decided that Croatia will choose its representative for Eurosong 2021 through the "Dora" competition and that this year's winner Damir Kedžo will not represent Croatia next year.

Recall that after the Eurosong 2020 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was postponed to next year due to the coronavirus pandemic, HRT decided in June to continue its tradition and that Dora will be held next year as planned, in February 2021, and accordingly Croatia will be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 by the one who wins then.

In an official statement for the media, HRT thanked Damir Kedžo for the excellent cooperation after the victory at Dora 2020, as well as the authors of the song “Divlji vjetre“ (“Wild wind“) Ante Pecotić and Bojan Šalamon Shalla.

This year's winner of Dora, Damir Kedžo, announced:

“This whole Dora 2020 experience was full circle. From happiness to sadness, from victory to the cancellation of Eurovision due to Covid-19, to the cancellation of me as a representative for Rotterdam 2021. Thank you to everyone, my band, the girls who shared the stage with me in Opatija, as well as this virtual one while we were singing 'Divlji vjetre' to people across Europe and the world online.

Thank you all for your support now that we know that HRT has decided to have a new competition and that we are not directly represented in Rotterdam 2021. It is not easy to endure this 'rollercoaster' of emotions and changes, so thank you all once again and I can't wait to go through everything that the future will bring us," said Kedžo, who has not yet decided with his team whether he will appear as a competitor again on Dora 2021.

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After several years of making the decision on who's representing Croatia at The Eurovision Song Contest, often called the Eurosong in various behind-the-scenes, not public and not show-worthy ways, Croatian Television has decided to bring back Dora! Dora is the national competition held to determine the Croatian candidate, traditionally held in Opatija, where songs are performed before a live audience and broadcast nation-wide on Croatian Television.

16 songs were selected and will be performed this Saturday, February 16th at 8 pm. Many of those will be performed by established Croatian music stars, such as Luka Nižetić and Lidija Bačić Lille, some of them will bring to the stage younger singers that have performed in the hit shows on Croatian Television, The Voice and A-side, such as Jure Brkljača and Ema Gagro, and many of the hopefuls for the Eurosong spot are relative new-comers to the Croatian music scene, that we yet need to get to know.

The winner will be selected by the combination of the votes by the professional juries and televoting votes (by phone calls and SMS), similar to the format of the actual Eurosong competition.

During the break for the voting procedure to be held, a show programme will be performed at the stage in the Marino Cvetković Sports Hall in Opatija. Franka Batelić, last year's Croatian representative at the Eurosong, Vanna, who represented Croatia several years ago, Dino Jelusić and Mia Negovetić (who's making a name for herself in the US) Sudar Percussion bans will be performing in the show.

The evening will be hosted by the Croatian television veteran Mirko Fodor and Iva Šulentić and Jelena Glišić.

The winner of the Dora competition will be representing Croatia in Eurovision Song Contest 2019, which will be held in Tel Aviv in May, as an Israeli singer Netta Barzilai won in 2018.

Portuguese representative Salvador Sobral was named winner of the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Croatian Jacques Houdek has advanced to the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest!