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

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” shows the rooftoppers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau climbing impossible heights while navigating their own romantic ups and downs.

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.”