Call it synchronicity or mere happenstance, but three masters of modern cinema share the same initials: AK. Back in 1985, when French filmmaker Chris Marker released his brilliant portrait of Akira Kurosawa, those two letters were sufficient to identify the great Japanese director. Since then, however, two major figures have emerged who share not only the same initials but also a visionary approach to the medium. One is the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who has achieved such universal critical acclaim that he plans to decline all future festival awards. Less heralded but no less gifted, the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki has written and directed a dozen feature films over the past two decades that manage to blend deadpan humor with an extraordinary humanist engagement with life’s less fortunate souls. This series reprises three of Kaurismäki’s masterpieces from the 1990s.