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Netflix recently dropped the new documentary, Skywalkers: A Love Story, which follows the Russian couple, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus. The couple has literally "climbed up" the ladders of fame as two of the most prolific "rooftoppers" in the world.
The couple climbs the rooftops of the world's tallest buildings, an activity that is technically illegal and poses a lot of danger. They do it without harnesses or safety nets. This has given them a huge social media following, which is also their daily bread.
Director Jeff Zimbalist, a former rooftopper, has documented their attempt to climb Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka skyscraper in Netflix's Skywalkers: A Love Story. In the documentary, the couple is trying to scale the skyscraper, whose highest point reaches 2227 feet into the sky. They tried to scale it on the night of the FIFA World Cup final in 2022. The new documentary tells their story and compiles many of their high-stakes climbs over the last few years.
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Skywalkers: A Love Story documents the couple's climbing as a part of their love story, which appears almost made-up. Yet, the couple continues to achieve some bold feats together, making a name beyond Russia and being wildly celebrated in the world of rooftoppers.
Netflix's Skywalkers: A Love Story takes a more intimate look into the world of rooftopping and into the couple's romance forged through their passion for thrills.
Skywalkers: A Love Story- Who are Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, and how did they get into rooftopping?
Rooftopping is a term that perhaps did not exist in this form before the advent of social media. However, as it has become a thing, it gained a lot of popularity. Both Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are from completely different worlds, but this offbeat sense of adventure brought them together.
Nikolau is the daughter of trapeze artists, which explains her natural inclination towards acts of high risk. She is trained in acrobatics and ballet, which started very early in her life. However, she also faced a difficult childhood, with her mother's depression and her father abandoning them. From a young age, Angela Nikolau was trying to be someone of her own.
She discovered rooftopping when she ran away from her mother at an event as she was bored and climbed a roof. In that experience, she discovered what she wanted to do.
Beerkus, meanwhile, belonged to a different world. He started climbing because he believed that he did not belong on the ground. He revealed that his earliest tendencies toward climbing rooftops came from a common practice among young boys in Russia. They climb rooftops and drink alcohol. But he was hooked on the thrill of just climbing higher buildings.
Beerkus revealed that in his teenage years, he was going through a phase where he did not know which direction he wanted to take. At that point, he saw a picture taken from the rooftop of a building and was interested. He soon started getting higher and higher and soon joined a fraternity of rooftoppers in Moscow.
This gave him his first shot at fame. Their group from Moscow also became a source of a lot of coverage. In his short stint in Moscow, Beerkus made a reputation for climbing Stalin-era buildings and amassed a following of 200,000 on Instagram. This was also the time Angela noticed him.
They finally met when Beerkus, who was already a big name in rooftopping by then, approached Angela Nikoalu to climb Goldin Finance together. This gig was sponsored by a travel company. He was reportedly looking for the best female rooftopper around for the project and met Angela, who kicked off a beautiful journey for them.
Their love blossomed through their shared passion for rooftopping, and now there are hours worth of footage of the couple conquering some of the most daunting buildings in the globe.
Skywalkers: A Love Story chronicles this journey with over 200 hours of material shot across seven years and six countries, as per Netflix's official site, Tudum. It is aided by Nikolau and Beerkus' own footage shot over the many, many climbs.
Skywalkers: A Love Story is now streaming on Netflix.
