Australia: Julia Zemiro has ‘a totally different feeling’

For the Australian commentator Julia Zemiro, Eurovision 2016 is extra special. For the first time, her country will compete in the semi final. “It gives me a totally different feeling,” she tells ESC Daily.

Zemiro has been commenting since 2009, but this time it is not the same. “All the other commentators say: Now you know how nervous we are. And it is true. Eight countries will go home from our semi final, and you have had contact with them behind the screen and you know this part of their dream is now over. That is why it is so important to get in to the final.”

It has been a long and special journey for Australia and their broadcaster SBS. No one could have predicted this to happen. “Not at all, it was incredible. Copenhagen invited us to do something at the interval, but there was no guarantee that anything would progress neccessarily. Then we got invited for Vienna and now it was SVT that asked us back.”