Croatia: Dora 2019 winner Roko will sing “The Dream” at Eurovision 2019

Croatia has chosen its Eurovision 2019 entry as “Dora 2019″ has just concluded. It is Roko with the song “The Dream” who will be flying the Croatian flag at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. Eurovision 2017 representative Jacques Houdek is the composer of the winning song.

For the first time since 2010, Croatia once again organised its traditional national selection format “Dora” in order to determine the Croatian Eurovision 2019 entry. The language restriction was abolished  for the very first time in history and songs in other languages than Croatian were also allowed to compete. The show was hosted by Iva Šulentić, Jelena Lešić and Mirko Fodor and took place at the Marino Cvetković Sports Hall in Opatija. Among the guest performers were 2018 Eurovision Song Contest representative Franka and Vanna, who represented Croatia in 2001 with “Strings of My Heart”.

The running order of the 16 competing entries:

1. Bojan Jambrošić & Danijela Pintarić – Vrijeme predaje
2. Jelena Bosančić – Tell Me
3. Kim Verson – Nisam to što žele
4. Jure Brkljača – Ne postojim kad nisi tu
5. Beta Sudar – Don’t Give Up
6. Lea Mijatović – Tebi pripadam
7. Gelato Sisters – Back To That Swing
8. Luka Nižetić – Brutalero
9. Elis Lovrić – All I Really Want
10. Domenica – Indigo
11. Roko – The Dream
12. Ema Gagro – Redemption
13. Lidija Bačić Lille – Tek je počelo
14. Lorena Bućan – Tower of Babylon
15. Bernarda Bruno – I Believe In True Love
16. Manntra – In The Shadows

The full songs were only fully released tonight as they were performed live on stage. Three days before the final Croatian national broadcaster HRT only released snippets of the competing entries.

The winner was decided by 50% public televote and 50% regional juries, the latter voting at the dress rehearsal and not during the live show. The regional jury votes were made up of 10 regional juries across the country: Zagreb, Vukovar, Split, Dubrovnik, Čakovec & Varaždin, Knin & Šibenik, Rijeka, Pula, Osijek and Zadar. Each jury consisted of three people: one HRT employee (music editor of the Hrvatska Radio or a music journalist), musicians and other music professionals. Each jury ranked all competing songs and awarded 1-8, 10 and 12 points to its top ten songs. Just like the ten juries (with a total of 580 points), the public vote also had the total amount of 580 points to distribute to the competing songs so that 10% of the vote was equivalent to 58 points.

The results of the national juries:

The overall result (public televoting results + regional jury results):

Both the regional juries and the public agreed that Roko should represent Croatia in Tel Aviv with his song “The Dream“, which is composed by Eurovision 2017 representative Jacques Houdek, Andrea Čubrić and Charlie Mason.