Climbers had to make an 'agreement' before climbing 2,200ft tower in case one of them fell to their death during filming

A loved-up couple doing acrobatics on the rooftops sounds all a bit The Greatest Showman-esque. But add in going viral on Instagram, getting arrested and the danger of death and you’ve got Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus.

The Moscow daredevils have made a career out of standing on the top of some of the world’s tallest buildings - despite the climbs technically being illegal.

And their love for ‘rooftopping’, as well as for each other, is explored in the new Netflix documentary, Skywalkers: A Love Story.

Before directors Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina came on board, the couple had also filmed 60 hours of raw material - including their arrest while making their nervy descent from the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

So, with both the illegality and very real risk of death that comes with scaling 2,200 foot tall buildings, the pair had to make an ‘agreement’ with the directors.

Zimbalist explained to LADbible that he and his co-director are ‘both caretakers by nature’ which made things tricky for them ‘ethically’.

He added: “The last thing that we would ever feel comfortable with is if something happened to them while on our watch, or because of us.”

The documentary sees Nikolau and Beerkus work towards and face Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 super-skyscraper - including its 160-metre spire.

Towards the end of the film, the pair make their way up the whopping 118-storey building.

And while they spent a long 36 hours stuck on one floor hiding from construction workers, they also walk past warning posters with the faces of other rooftoppers who have already tried and failed to get up the tower.

Therefore, not only does the pair’s aim to get that clip of them on top of the building come with the danger of, well, falling off but the risk of ending up in a Malaysian prison.

“And so we did need to make an agreement with them right up front that they wouldn't do anything that they wouldn't do otherwise, just because our cameras were there or because they thought it would be good for the film,” Zimbalist continued.

“Obviously, you know that they can say that, but then sometimes subconsciously, they want to do it anyway. So, there’s just constant check in where we were saying to them, ‘remember, this isn't a film about risking your life, this is a film about choosing to trust each other. This is a love story and not an extreme sports story, and so don't do that right?’”

That love story very much is at the centre of the documentary though, with Nikolau often using a metaphor about ‘the flyer and the catcher and the trapeze’ which the pair flip between in their relationship.

But, while he says they trusted the pair's instincts, Zimbalist claims that metaphor often came into play with their dynamics too.

He added: “We often felt that actually we were the catcher and they would go up to the sky, and we'd pull them down a little bit and say, ‘Don't be so reckless. Don't be so unrealistic’.”

Skywalkers: A Love Story can be streamed on Netflix now.