Taking part to Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) as an independent State for the first time in 2007, Montenegro selected tonight during a TV-show broadcasted on TVCG 1 at 9:00pm from the Disco “Shass” club in Podgorica, its second representative to ESC, of which the 53rd edition will take place this May in Belgrade, Serbia.

Six Montenegrin artists including Nenad Knežević, Vesna Milačić, Stefan Filipović, Andrea Demirović, the rock band “Grim” and Jelena Kažanegra, were competing this evening to have a chance to become the next cultural ambassador of Montenegro to the famous international contest. They all performed two songs each, one before and the other after the televoting finished. Finally garnering a total of 3,325 SMS votes on him [1], Stefan Filipović won the national ticket to Eurovision, thus succeeding Stevan Faddy as decided by the Montenegrin public. The song he will perform in Belgrade is still unknown and will be announced March 15.

Stefan Filipović is a young talented Montenegrin musician, born on January 18, 1987 in Podgorica. Aged 21, after being student at the Music Academy of Cetinje, he has already begun what promises to be a successful artist career — started at age 7 [2], winning the prestigious grand prix of the 14th Music Festival Budva in June 2007 [3] with the song “Nebo i More” (“The sky and the sea”), written by Dragan Brajović Braja and arranged by Dejan Abadić. He also participated to MontenegroSong 2007, the first edition of the national selection to Montenegro’s Eurovision Song Contest entry, with “Ne Mogu Bez Tebe” (2nd place; see bottom) and to Evropesma 2006, where he finished 4th with his song “Za Nju”.

As the newly-designed cultural ambassador of Montenegro, Stefan Filipović will be able to open the premiere of the new format of ESC which now includes two semi-finals — on May 20 and 22, 2008 — and a grand final two days later.