According to a statement given to official Eurovision website eurovision.tv, the Italian participant for the 2011 edition of Eurovision will be selected from the participants of long running festival “San Remo”, as in the years before Italy withdrew from the contest in 1998.
According to the organisers of the contest RAI, “a specific jury will give a special prize to the artist best fit to represent the country in Germany (sic)”, meaning that the winner of San Remo will not necessarily participate at Eurovision for the Mediterranean country.
Below you can see the list of fourteen participants that will take part in San Remo 2011.
The contest will begin on Tuesday, February 15th and finish on Saturday, February 19th. The show, as always will take place from the movie theatre “Teatro Ariston” in the town of San Remo, and broadcast over RAI’s first channel (RAI Uno) and RAI Internacional. The songs in the festival will remain secret until the first night of competition. It is also unknown if the participant for Italy will sing their San Remo entry in Düsseldorf, or if a translated version (or even a new song) will be made for the occasion.