Olta Boka wins national final and goes to Belgrade

TIRANA, Dec.18- Olta Boka won tonight’s national final and will sing the song ‘Zemren e lame peng’ (We Gambled The Heart) in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. The song was composed by Adrian Hila with lyrics written by Pandi Laco.
They also wrote Ledina Celo’s entry in 2005, Tomorrow I Go, and Frederik Ndoci’s, Hear My Plea, last year. It was performed in Albanian in the national final, but could be entirely or partly performed in English in the Eurovision Song Contest as in 2004, 2005 and 2007.
The 46th Festivali i Kenges ended with the announcement of the winners and their prizes. The show hosted by well-known singer Elsa Lila, who lives and studies in Italy, and composer Pirro ȡko, brought a qualitative improvement to the previous festivals. The festival has been the single greatest artistic event in Albania prior to the regime change, but after the democratization of media it lost ground to other shows hosted by private organizations.
As during previous years, allegations and accusations did not lack, especially concerning singer Blero, who withdrew from the competition days before it started, and singer Rovena Dilo who was disqualified.