'Skywalkers: A Love Story' Is Opening Film of HamptonsFilm's SummerDocs

When Emmy-winning director Jeff Zimbalist was in college, he dubbed himself an “amateur roof-topper” — someone who, unsecured, scales tall buildings with the hope of reaching the top. After reading literature about culture theory from such philosophers as Frederic Jameson and Theodore Adorno, Zimbalist began roof-topping, or as they called it back then, simply trespassing. It was only later that the name “urban exploration” or “roof-topping” emerged.

“Looking for those autonomous spaces, those nooks and crannies that were under the city, or on top of it, where I could face my fear and figure out who I wanted to be on my own terms, was really thrilling,” Zimbalist said. “It was transcendent, it was spiritual and it was empowering.”

Now, nearly 15 years later, the Los Angeles-based Zimbalist and co-director Maria Bukhonina have rekindled that spark of passion through their film, “Skywalkers: A Love Story.” The screening is opening HamptonsFilm’s SummerDocs series in partnership with Guild Hall East Hampton on Friday, July 5.

“I was compelled to look for a story that resonated as deeply as my experience had, and that took 15 years,” Zimbalist said.

The story he found all these years later was that of a Russian couple, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, an elite roof-topping duo who made their respective names on social media, each going viral after posting pictures of their jaw-dropping feats across various skyscrapers.

The movie, filmed over five years, tells Nikolau and Beerkus’s story: how they went from a competitive couple to a romantic one, and how “skywalking,” as they have aptly named it, brought them closer together in a time of crisis.

Zimbalist and his crew began work on the project in 2015, after Beerkus and Nikolau had already met, but they started the film with a “total gold mine,” as Zimbalist puts it, of archival footage that they received from other independent filmmakers.

“At the time, it was unclear whether they were competitors and rivals or whether they were actually courting each other,” Zimbalist said. “It was the early stages, and it was unclear which direction it would go in.”

The direction, of course, was that of a love story, but there were many obstacles in the way, especially during the filming process. Zimbalist and Bukhonina had to follow Beerkus and Nikolau for some of the climbs, and make sure everything was being done safely.

“Maria and I went up on some very high buildings and had some close calls. It was really fun, but also there’s a different level of responsibility because this was a professional project with a safety protocol,” Zimbalist explained. “We felt an enormous amount of accountability to keep our cast and crew safe.”

To get certain shots, Zimbalist and Bukhonina followed the couple up to roof-top heights, but no farther. Anything above roof level was filmed either by drone or GoPro cameras attached to Beerkus and Nikolau, along with equipment like selfie sticks, night vision lenses and sports mics.

“We agreed that when they were going to extreme heights and extreme situations like spires or cranes, they would be filming by themselves without us, so we were not distracting them,” Bukhonina said.

For example, the couple was alone during their show-stopping attempt to climb Merdeka Tower, the second tallest skyscraper in the world located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a feat that took 30 hours. By this point, though, they were used to it, as Beerkus and Nikolau had done over 60 hours of filming by themselves.

For Zimbalist, who attests he’s “more afraid of heights” now than he used to be as a younger man, the thrill of his early “skywalking” days was still present during the shoots.

“Your head is in a different place as a producer on these climbs than when you’re just a young bulletproof cowboy,” he said. “I loved bringing it back into my life and watching it on the big screen; feeling that thrill again, but through a different lens.”

But it wasn’t just the high buildings that raised the stakes. Filming was also taking place during both the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Luckily, Bukhonina, who is Russian-American, was able to be abroad with Beerkus and Nikolau during both challenging times.

“Thank God everything worked out,” Zimbalist said. “We’re so grateful nobody was injured or arrested.”

Although it is illegal and should not be imitated, roof-topping has seemingly become a popular activity in Russia, and interest has also spread to places like China. Bukhonina explained that Russia is “a society where young people are in a stand-off with the government, with the government being super-oppressive and not allowing a lot of creative freedom.

“That was probably the impetus for this to be created,” she continued. “It’s kind of like a renegade art. It’s a way to break the rules in a society that’s a bit oppressive around the edges.”

For Beerkus and Nikolau, it is most certainly an art form, especially with the outlet that social media has provided. Nikolau has dubbed the pair “the modern-day traveling circus,” a term stemming from her family’s experience in that very field.

“Angela’s sense is that they are artists. Her role models aren’t the Kardashians, they are Basquiat and Warhol,” Zimbalist explained. “They do consider this the equivalent of a photographer showing at galleries.”

Through social media, Beerkus and Nikolau have been able to reach millions of people with their photos, and also sell directly to their audience through the creation and purchase of NFTs.

“It’s been an incredible boom for them to be able to create their careers at such a young age and express themselves so freely,” Zimbalist said.

But displaying such a dangerous set of activities on social media definitely has its setbacks.

“The downside, of course, is that you run the risk of copycats,” Zimbalist explained. “People might look at their videos and think it’s easy and think they can do it and put their lives at risk.”

Bukhonina worked hard to avoid any audience misunderstandings.

“Maria was instrumental in teaching Ivan and Angela that we need to see just how difficult this is, we need to see the struggles, the failures, we need to feel their fear and know they’re not invincible,” Zimbalist said. “We need to see these universal obstacles that we can identify with so that we’re not just seeing the polished, perfect persona on Instagram.”

“We feel pretty confident that by the end of the film anyone who’s watched it is going to go ‘that is not for me,’” Bukhonina added.

The biggest challenge, both directors agreed, was that of staying safe under pressure.

“On the one hand, there’s all this pressure to deliver something amazing that has a big climax, but on the other hand, you really want to prioritize safety and make sure that nothing bad happens,” Zimbalist said. “That’s a constant tug-of-war in terms of, as Angela puts it, ‘the flyer and the catcher in trapeze.’ How much do we push ourselves to pursue something that’s never been done before, and how much do we pull back?” he added.

At the same time, there is a great sense of reward for the directors now that the work is done.

“What’s most rewarding to us is that people watch the film and come back and say, ‘Sure there were great visuals and cinematics, but what stuck with me was trusting your partner,’” Zimbalist said.

Bukhonina added that the film, which screened at Sundance and other film festivals, has had a big feminist influence as well.

“There’s a lot of young girls who, after watching the film, want an autograph from Nikolau — not because she’s roof-topping, but because she has a vision and she’s unafraid to insist on that. She’s a force for us women in creative arts. A strong female protagonist pushing for her artistic vision who refuses to back down. It’s very inspiring to see,” Bukhonina said.

Zimbalist and Bukhonina’s parting message about the film was two-fold.

“The film gets positive attention around the vertigo-inducing spectacle, and we’re thrilled about that, but we didn’t set out to make a thriller or a heist film, and we were really blessed that those things happened. The vision from the beginning was that this was going to be a love story,” Zimbalist said.

“Our north star throughout production,” he added, “was that we didn’t want this to be a film about the fear of falling from heights, but also to be a film about the fear of falling in love.”

HamptonsFilm’s SummerDocs screening of “Skywalkers: A Love Story” is Friday, July 5, at 7 p.m. at Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton. Tickets are $35 at hamptonsfilmfest.org.