San Remo Song Festival
Although not directly providing Italy's entry to Eurovision, the annual San Remo song festival, from which our favourite contest sprang, usually provides the singer to represent Italy.
The most well-known name to come out of the contest recently is Laura Pausini, who was the winner in the newcomers section in 1993.
The final night, 22nd February, as usual overran, but by only 90 minutes, and had guest artists Natalie Cole, Mirelle Mathieu, and Kula Shaker filling in the gaps between competitors and dumb presenters. Plenty of Eurovision faces were competing, including Al Bano(1976,1985), Anna Oxa(1989), and Tuto Cutugno(1990).
Anyway, here are the top three placings in the final classification:

1. 'Fiumi di parole' (Rivers of words) - Jalisse (pictured here) - 15325 points
2. 'Storie' - Anna Oxa - 14911 points
3. 'Sei tu' - Syria - 14753 points

Internal links:

• Return to ESC 1997 Newspage
• Return to Eurovision homepage