"When our eyes touch, is it day or is it night?" - With this anonymous phrase written on a wall in Paris, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida once make a question writing to his friend Jean-Luc Nancy. We use to perceive photography as a matter of spotting, of viewpoint, even a critical one. As poetic and intimate as it is political, Derrida's expression turns into the essence of a thought that photography should be even more; it must be touch, touching the world with own eyes. This crossing of the gaze with the public, no matter how intimate and personal, can never be anonymous, on the contrary, it brings us the idea of meeting, of overcoming the limits - physical but also moral - of a non-marginal relationship with the subject and a deep analysis of human conditions and the environment, starting from the body, the life, the praying, the suffering, the joy, the human texture of the world, but also everything forbidden in it. This theme projects the photographer's work towards the community in the social aspect as much as he introjects his gaze deep within himself, towards what at first sight seems untouchable to others. And so, when the eyes are touched, everything superfluous vanishes and everything is even clearer.

Fokus Award is 15 years old, touching this anniversary not only as the longest-lived and largest festival of the Albanian regions, but also as an international event of art and as the front gate for the internationalization of Albanian photography. Fokus Award, all these years has taught us that photography, beyond the documentation of human conditions and art, is also a feeling, an attitude; it is resistance. "Touch Me With Your Eyes" is the theme of our 15th edition and the invitation comes to everyone, photographers or not. Let's continue this journey together in this jubilee edition.

You are all invited!