The fifth edition of 5th MPLE, Ogae Greece's annual festival, was held last Saturday at the 2006 Eurocafe venue under the Acropolis in Athens. About 150 members and friends gathered to watch the videos of the 25 participating countries and vote for their favourite songs. OGAE Greece members and invited friends agreed that the event was a resounding success.
MPLE is a game for Eurovision Song Contest fans and addicts much like the contest itself. Members of the club work all year long to select their entries for this contest holding "semi finals" or "internal selections". 107 players divided in 25 teams competed for the Cycladic idol head statuette prize this year. Special video clips, based on this year's focal theme, which was the cinema, were created for each song by Antreas Kalaitzis.
Russia with Ot rasluki do ljubwi by Valeriya won by a landslide, followed by Italy with the classic A far l'amore comincia tu by Rafella Cara and Belgium, this year's "host country", in third place with Quelques cris by Johnny Hallyday.
Guests of honour were Marianna Eftstratiou (Greece 1989 and 1996) and president of OGAE Belgium Kristof Deneev who announced the results of the Belgian "televote" in perfect Greek. Greece, represented by Sakis Rouvas with his latest hit Ola gyro sou gyrizoun won the Audience award. The show was hosted by our own Stella Floras.
Click here to view a full gallery of photographs from the night.
