In March it has been confirmed that Dora will be organized in Opatija and a month ago Croatia has confirmed their participation at Eurovision Song Contest 2022. Today we’ve got more news of the Croatian selection as the submissions for Dora 2022 have officially opened by HRT.

All interested authors and singers will be having a chance until the 25th of November to submit their song. Dora 2022 will take place in February and the show will feature 14 songs in addition to those 4 back up songs will be selected. The Croatian representative at Eurovision 2022 will be selected by a combined vote of jury and audience.  The novelty of Dora 2022 is that the song won’t be reworked, but some minor changes could be allowed, only with the permission of HRT in addition to that they reinstated the old Dora rule and traditional Eurovision rule – there is a maximum of six people on stage. The previously recorded backing vocals will remain for the next edition of Dora. As usual HRT reserves the right to publish one-minute clips before the Dora is held for promotional purposes.

The application for Dora 2022 includes:

• Personal information about the performers,
• Final studio master recording of the song,
• Songs should be performed in Croatian or some other official European language, and the application should include lyrics of the submitted entry;
• Consent on the regulated copyright, performance and phonogram rights for the submission;
• Legal representative statement ,
• Proof of citizenship;
• Consent of the author of the music, the author of the lyrics, the performer and the right holder of the phonogram producer.

The full application form  in Croatian can be found HERE. The full rules are available HERE.

It is important to note that HRT does not have the obligation to record a special video for the winning song. In case if the authors of the winning song of Dora 2022 already prepare a video for it and in case it meets the technical qualities and does not contain any sponsorship and advertising messages, HRT may send the official music video, instead of the recording from the winning performance at Dora 2022, to the EBU, before the meeting of the Heads of Delegation on 14th of March 2022.

The first Croatian selection for Eurovision Song Contest took part back in 1992 but because of their troubles to join the EBU, Croatia didn’t take part at Eurovision 1992 with the winning performance of their Crovision (Crovizija) “Aleluja” by Magazin. The following two years, the name of their selection was Croatian television festival and the name Dora was used for the first time in 1995. Dora in a form of a festival was used to select the Croatian representative until the Eurovision 2010. in Opatija, the following year a special reality show format of Dora was organised in order to select their representative at Eurovision 2011 with the name Dora 2011 – Let’s go to Eurovision!

After the break, the show came back again in 2019 in it’s festival format. It featured 16 competing artists and songs, the winner was Roko with “The Dream” he didn’t qualify to the final of Eurovision 2019. In 2020, Dora featured another 16 songs out of which “Divlji Vjetre” by Damir Kedžo managed to snatch the victory but because of the cancellation of Eurovision Song Contest 2020 the song wasn’t performed in 2021, 14 songs competed at Dora and “Tick-Tock” by Albina won the show.

Albina performed “Tick-Tock” at Eurovision 2021 and even though being a qualifier from both judges and the televote when the points combined Croatia ended on 11th place in the first semi-final just 5 points behind Norway. You can check out her performance below