This couple’s hobby? Illegally scaling the world’s tallest buildings together

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — What was your most thrilling first date? In 2016, two young Russians known for their extreme “rooftopping” adventures — where they attempt to illegally climb vertiginous landmarks like La Sagrada Familia and the Eiffel Tower — skipped the perfunctory happy hour cocktail and instead ascended China’s tallest incomplete skyscraper, the 1,957-foot-high Goldin Finance 117.

At the time, Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau didn’t know they’d end up together. Beerkus had invited Nikolau, a rare female member of the rooftopping community (she was scaling the proverbial glass wall before breaking it), to join him for the climb to produce sponsored social media posts. But it was the beginning of a long romantic and creative partnership, which has led them to travel thousands of miles — and thousands of feet in the air — together.

Eight years later, the documentary film “Skywalkers: A Love Story” takes an intimate look at their unusual romance through hundreds of hours of footage that, of course, includes heart-dropping POV footage from impossible heights and the occasional run-in with law enforcement.

Like all couples, Beerkus and Nikolau have their ups and downs, and when they argue the stakes are a just bit higher than most (in one scene, Beerkus bravely accuses his girlfriend of being “too negative” as she gears up to nail a precarious acrobatic pose literally above the clouds). Through the pair’s unusual lifestyles, “Skywalkers” becomes a meditation on trust and commitment, though their stunts will also get your palms sweaty, if that’s your thing.

Directed by Jeff Zimbalist, a filmmaker with rooftopping experience of his own, and co-directed by Maria Bukhonina, ”Skywalkers” debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January and is now streaming on Netflix. It follows the couple, who utilize Nikolau’s background as a trained gymnast to create acrobatic stunts on narrow ledges, poles and scaffolding, as they take on increasingly difficult challenges and navigate their own budding relationship.

“It’s not just about the fear of falling from heights, but more about the fear of falling in love,” Zimbalist said in a video call with CNN. “Angela first told me that they were… competitors and rivals. But you could sense under the surface that there was this bubbling flirtation there.”

An architectural dare

As the documentary progresses, the pair plot out their most difficult climb yet: Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka 118, the world’s second-tallest building. The gleaming 2,227-foot-tall tower, which opened earlier this year, is crowned with a 527-foot-tall spire whose apex is only accessible via a narrow internal ladder.

In 2022, when Beerkus and Nikolau made their plans, the “supertall” skyscraper had topped out but was still under construction. Evading security and reaching its apogee safely required an intense and elaborate scheme — one conjured while they worked through relationship issues. (At the time of their climb, the tower’s owner said police were investigating the pair for trespassing, although Malaysian authorities did not respond to CNN about whether further legal action was taken.)

Rooftopping is a contentious pastime — both for the danger it poses and participants’ reliance on illegal trespassing. With the urban “sport” emerging as one more of the more extreme ways to get likes on social media, several harrowing deaths have followed.

For “Skywalkers” the film crew followed Beerkus and Nikolau to document their stunts, but only to a point. Zimbalist emphasized his team’s safety measures, which were designed to ensure the crew neither endangered themselves nor presented any distractions for the couple.

“We talked a lot with Ivan and Angela, saying, ‘Please, don’t go do anything additionally crazy beyond what you would usually do,’” Zimbalist said. “Because to us, this isn’t a movie about whether or not you succeed at Merdeka or any other climb… the genuine suspense here is if you choose to trust each other.”

An ‘expanded state of mind’

For the couple, rooftopping isn’t just about thrill-seeking. Nikolau, the daughter of circus performers, says in the film that pushing herself to her limits was engrained from childhood and that she is always striving to better herself. For Beerkus, who scaled buildings alone in Moscow for years, rooftopping offers a sense of mental clarity.

“The higher I went, the easier it was to breathe,” he says to camera, recalling his earliest climbs. “This extreme life, this expanded state of mind, it’s essential for me.”

Zimbalist recognizes the dangers of rooftopping and says his film is not  about “defending what they do against critics.”

Instead, he hope that ”Skywalkers,” in addition to its message on love and trust, provides a rare look at the hard work and planning behind the rooftoppers’ “polished” social media posts.

“With any activity that’s dangerous, social media tends to disguise the difficulty,” he said. “Telling the story behind a stunt helps to give context and just how challenging and how dangerous some of these things are.”

Believe it or not, Nikolau maintains that she is afraid of heights, something she has had to confront repeatedly to keep up with her chosen line of work.

“The fear never really went away; I just got better and better at facing it,” she explains in one clip.

So while the makers of “Skywalkers” would probably rather you don’t climb your nearest skyscraper, their film encourages us to dare — and say “yes” to the thing that scares us the most.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” is available to watch on Netflix

Add to Queue: Such great heights

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READ: “Extreme Like a Girl” (2021)

Photographer Carolina Amell compiles images and personal accounts of women in extreme sports, including wingsuit pilots, parkour athletes and slackliners, who are not only pushing themselves to their limits but breaking barriers in male-dominated arenas.

LISTEN: “Stuff Mom Never Told You: Women Climbing Mountains” (2022)

This podcast episode delves into the lesser-known history of women mountaineers, from Félicité Carrel, the first woman to attempt to summit Mount Matterhorn, to Miriam O’Brien, who coined the term “manless climbing” in the early 20th century and achieved some of the world’s most difficult climbs.

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This documentary on parkour at the height of its popularity follows five people who practice the sport for different reasons. It was shot in true slow motion to capture all the nuances and spectacle of their movements.

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