Zemrën e lamë peng

"Zemrën e lamë peng" (Hearts trapped in time) is the song that represented Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia. The song was sung by Olta Boka and was selected on 16 December 2007 during the televised show Festivali I Këngës.

The song was performed 6th on the night of the second semi-final, following Lithuania's Jeronimas Milius with "Nomads in the Night" and preceding Switzerland's Paolo Meneguzzi with "Era stupendo". The song received 67 points, placing 9th in a field of 19 and qualifying Albania to the final for the first time since 2005.

At the final Boka performed 3rd in the running order, following the United Kingdom's Andy Abraham with "Even If" and preceding Germany's No Angels's with "Disappear". She received 55 points, placing joint 16th (with Spain) in a field of 25.

The song will be succeeded as Albanian representative at the 2009 contest by Kejsi Tola with "Më merr në ëndërr".

Fellow Eurovision 2008 singer Boaz Mauda covered the song in Hebrew, titled שער ליבך, on his eponymous debut album.

Olta Boka

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Olta Boka (born November 4, 1991 in Tirana) is an Albanian singer who was chosen to represent Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with her song "Zemrën e lamë peng". She won the Albanian national final, called Festivali i Këngës, and competed in the second semifinal, on May 22 and won a place in the final on May 24 where she finished 17th out of 25 entrants with 55 points. She is the youngest singer to represent a country in the Eurovision Song Contest since the year 2004 with Lisa Andreas representing Cyprus at 16. Olta Boka has participated in "Ethet e së Premtes Mbrëma" (Friday Night Fever) show in Albania.

On top fest 11 edition Olta Boka was awarded with "top Albania Radio" price. With the same price was also awarded Erik Lloshi.

References

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson), often shortened to ESC or Eurovision, is the longest-running annual TV song competition, held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the USA and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event. In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia would return in 2016. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, via the Eurovision website.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008

The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 was the 53rd edition of the Contest. It was hosted in Belgrade, Serbia after Marija Šerifović won the 2007 Contest in Helsinki, Finland. This year was the first time there were three contests; two semi-finals which were held on 20 and 22 May, and the traditional grand final which was held on 24 May 2008. The shows were hosted by Jovana Janković and Željko Joksimović at the Belgrade Arena which had a total capacity of 25,000 seats. The host broadcaster was RTS.

After a total of 272 points, Dima Bilan representing Russia (for the second time) was declared the winner, with the song "Believe" written by American Jim Beanz and Bilan himself. So far this has been the only time Russia has won the contest. Russia came third in the semi-final, making it the winner with the worst semi-final result.

Ukraine were runners up for the second year running, with 3rd place going to Greece, 4th to Armenia seeing their best result so far and 5th to Norway. Azerbaijan landed 8th place in its debut contest.

Song Contest

Song Contest may refer to: