Morgan Spurlock in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

This year’s Sundance Film Festival is notable for its documentary recidivists — repeat offenders who continue to make documentaries even though there’s no money and very little glory in them.

"They do it because they love it," says Mark Urman, head of ThinkFilm, a prime distributor of documentaries (Murderball, the Oscar-nominated Taxi to the Dark Side). "They are people who believe in discovery and serendipity."

This year's returning documentarians include Morgan Spurlock (Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?), Edet Belzberg (An American Soldier), Nanette Burstein (American Teen), Alex Gibney (Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson), Patrick Creadon (I.O.U.S.A.), Rob Moss (Secrecy), and Stacey Peralta (Made in America).

With the possible exception of Spurlock, who is very much a part of his films (see Super Size Me), these filmmakers' faces are generally not well known, which, with the possible exception of the Oscars, makes Sundance the only time they get to be in the spotlight. (But even Oscar nominees in the documentary category are often quickly forgotten.) To really make it as a doc filmmaker you have to be a Michael Moore or Ken Burns — that is, a brand name peddling a familiar product. Audiences flock to a Moore film because they know they're going to get moral outrage dressed up as a series of pranks (Fahrenheit 911, Sicko). A Burns film takes on a Big Subject — like, say, America — by tackling a slightly lesser one (The Civil War, Baseball).

Contrast that with Burstein, whose films have been about boxers (On the Ropes), legendary producer Robert Evans (The Kid Stays in the Picture), and now American teenagers (American Teen). They're all in some way very personal.

"It's the subtext I'm interested in," she says. "I've been wanting to do a documentary about teenagers for years."

But, like most of these filmmakers, Burstein has had to do other things in the meantime. She's exec produced TV shows (Film School), directed commercials, and is part owner of a New York City literary watering hole, the Half King, along with writer Sebastian Junger and others. And while she'd love to direct feature films, she doesn't seem the least bit bothered by the sort of scattershot life she leads as a documentary filmmaker.

"I've always had a hand in a lot of things," she says. "After my first film I thought I'd be rich and famous." She laughs.