Mario Battifiaca

Mario Battifiaca, born Mario Lipovšek Battifiaca on 20 November 1971 in Rijeka, is a Croatian singer, radio presenter and television host. He is best known for songs in the Chakavian dialect of the Kvarner coast, many of them prize winners at the region's festivals.

He began in 1993 in the duo Battifiaca with Vesna Valenčić, whose album Komać da je polne came out that year, followed by Opće nismo kurioži in 1996. In 1994 he made his first appearance at Melodije Istre i Kvarnera (MIK), and in 1997 he sang "Još vavek", his first song in Chakavian, at Dora, the Croatian Eurovision selection. In 2000 he went solo.

MIK became his home festival. The audience gave him first prize for "Štrukuje me ta mala" (1995), "Stari mladić i citela" (1996) and "Prihajan doma" (2008), and "Ćeš me zet" (2000) won the jury award and the Zlatni mikrofon for best interpretation, a prize he took again for "Nevesta od soli" (2002). "Nonićeva pasara" won the audience at Melodije Kvarnera in 2003. The album Fiacca Cronica (2007) gathers his prize-winning songs. In 2009 he was third at Dora with "Ma gdje bila", and later wins came at Zadarfest ("Od bisera grano", 2010), ČAnsonfest ("Tičić boh", 2011, and two more in 2015 and 2016) and the Festival dell'Istroveneto ("Beata l'ora", 2015).

Alongside music he has worked in radio since 1994, on Hrvatski radio Rijeka and Radio Istra, where he co-created the award-winning show Šlapa. He was editor-in-chief of the Rijeka station KanalRi, co-created the satirical TV show Bijele udovice, which moved to Nova TV in 2006, and from 2013 hosted the panel show Komikaze on RTL. He has hosted MIK, RetrOpatija and the Rijeka Carnival.

He has also acted: in the theatre group SKAM, as Don Silvestro in the musical comedy Aggiungi un posto a tavola at the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, as Barba Pave in the Chakavian musical Sušak, Sušak, and in the film Bella Biondina (2011).