Der kleine Kuno is an East German black and white children's adventure film, directed by Kurt Jung-Alsen.
It was released in 1959, and is set in October 1959 during the tenth anniversary celebrations of the foundation of the communist East Germany state as seen through the lens of a little boy and his two-day adventures.
After the police find him and bring him to his father (Rudolf Ulrich) who is still working the night shift as a typesetter at a printing company, a newspaper reporter (Rolf Ludwig) agrees to bring Kuno to his mother (Margit Schaumäker) who is just returning home from her shift as a nighttime streetcar conductor, and after they get home, she puts her son to bed.
It is a small, good film, in many details of its design exemplary of the modern, socialist children's film.”[4] Benita Blessing argues that, in the history of East German cinematography, “Der kleine Kuno” is representative of a new “generation of films [which] turned to children as adventurous members of a society who look forward to a bright future.
In this casting young people are freed from the burden of the Nazi past and begin to make their own mistakes from which they can learn.”[5] Part of the reasoning behind the new direction was the state's policy to confront the many negative social issues surrounding the East German uprising of 1953 with positive socialist imaginary of progress in GDR film and fiction.