As previously announced, Ani Lorak will represent Ukraine in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. Details on how the song will be selected and presented have now been revealed by broadcaster NTU, a national final will be held on 16th February.

The song selection will take placein three steps: The first stepstarted on25thDecember and will last until 5th February. It includes the official introduction of Ani Lorak as Ukrainian representativeduring apress conference, an advertising campaign, the collecting and registering of the submitted songs and forming the jury board. The second step will take place from 6th to 8th February when the jury will listen to all submitted songs and choose the six best ones. The third and stepstage isthe national final which will take place on 16th February 2008. It will be a live concert in the studio of NTU, where the six songs will be performed.The winning song will be chosen by a jury and televoting.

Any composerand author is allowed to take part, including foreign ones. The author must have the guarantee of the authorship right for the lyrics and music and must also assure that his or her song is an original one and hasn’t been released for commercial use. The songsmay be either in Ukrainian, English or Ukrainian and English.

All songs have to be submittedthe following way: the score should be submitted along with thelyrics inEnglish and Ukrainianas well as a phonogram (plus and minus)which is recorded on CD or DVD. The author should also fill in the form and indicate his/her personal data: name, surname, date of birth, place of birth, place of livingand postal index. All the information should be send by mail to the address of NTU.

Ukraine debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 and has been very succesful on three occasions: Ruslana won the competition in 2004 with Wild dances, Tina Carol came seventh in Athens with Show me your live while Verka Serduchka was runner-up in Helsinki with the song Dancing lasha tumbai. Nevertheless, the country will have to compete in one of the two semi finals because of the new format of the contest.

More information can be found here . (in Ukrainian)