The death of the actor Anton Yelchin, in a freak accident outside his home in 2016, was one that film fans took personally — whether or not they’d ever met him. Yelchin was only 27 but had put together a sturdy and eclectic filmography. Russian-born, he was an endearing young Chekov in the J.J. Abrams-produced “Star Trek” movies. And he did searching, intimate work in several independent films, including the punked-out genre movie “Green Room” and the disturbing, erotically obsessed “Porto,” to name two of his final appearances.

This affectionate, heartbreaking documentary about his life, directed by Garret Price, presents Yelchin as a soldier of cinema, and a lot more. His Russian-Jewish parents were renowned figure skaters who settled in the United States before he was a year old. Happenstance led to work as a child actor; a goofy sense of humor and a growing commitment to storytelling yielded wild short films, shot on a camcorder.