There must be millions of fans out there.

The 1964 film Zulu was a hit in the box office, and has continued to entertain on the small screen ever since.

According to imdb trivia it is Hugh Grant’s favourite film; at the 50th anniversary showing in Leicester Square Prince Harry said it was one of his favourite films, and in 2011 it was voted best British film by the British Army.

And with its taking of historical liberties by Welsh actor/producer Stanley Baker, it has become de facto the only Welsh war film.

And now, for Zulu fans, there is a special treat – an exclusive viewing of a 26 minute film of the making of the film, at a special gala dinner at the Brecon barracks of the Royal Welsh Regiment, whose antecedents fought at Rorke’s Drift and won the biggest number of Victoria Cross medals awarded to a regiment for a single battle.

Over two days in 1894 the 24th Regiment of Foot turned Victorian pride and prejudice upside down when a force of 1,300 men were slaughtered by a Zulu army mainly armed with traditional spear and bull’s hide shield. Later that day, and stretching through the night and into the morning, a detachment of 150 men held off an army of 3,500 Zulu warriors 11 miles away from Isandlwana at, and through their heroism went some way to redressing the humiliation of the earlier defeat.

Two of those VCs awarded by a relieved Queen Victoria were won by soldiers from Gwent: Pte Robert Jones (played by Denys Graham in the film) from Penrhos near Raglan; and John Fielding (enlisted as Williams and played by Peter Gill in the film) who had an annual parade in his honour until 2019 at Cwmbran in memory of his heroism at Rorke’s Drift.

On October 15 at Dering Lines, Brecon, along with an exhibition of the original hand-painted storyboards used in the film that gave Michael Caine his first major film role, and vintage posters from 1964, film buffs and Zulu fans will be treated to a fascinating portrayal of the making of this iconic film that is still ranked at the top of lists of favourite films.

These are all possessions of 57-year-old film maker Henry Coleman from Woking, who was brought up in South Africa, and is a passionate aficionado of the film.

Shot in Kwa Zulu Natal at the height of apartheid, using thousands of Zulu extras - many of whom were descended from the warriors who fought the British army at the engagement of Rorke’s Drift, or the battle of Isandlwana on January 22, 1894.

The remastered 16mm film backstage footage of the making of Zulu, and the screening, is a taster for Coleman’s own film Zulu and the Zulus, a 90 minute documentary which will tell the stories of the 3,000 Zulu extras who took part in the making of Zulu during 1963.

It is an important point. Zulu premiered in London’s West End on January 22, 1964, the anniversary of the Rorke’s Drift defence. In June that year Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment along with several other African National Congress leaders for sabotage.

South Africa’s Minister for Native Affairs banned screenings to black South Africans “because it might incite them to rise up”.

Apartheid was in full swing, and ensuring strict separation between white and black, and difficulties to overcome in the filming process that demanded full inter-racial integration.

Coleman has gone out to the Zulu nation, and sought to track down the stories of those who were extras in the filming of the movie, and give the story of its making through their eyes, and their mouths. With most of the extras never seeing the finished film, he wants to be able to show them, seeing themselves, on screen, and as part of the living history of Zulu legend.

“No one has tried to contact the 3,000 Zulu extras who were involved in the making of the film. So we went out to film what their stories and what they recall in the early 1960s and under Apartheid. I want to draw out the Zulu nation stories,” he said.

His own relationship with the film started when his father took him and his brother on a trip around the battle sites during a family holiday in Durban when he was 13 years old.

“At that age when we walked around the battlefields, your imagination lets you really feel what happened, and you can hear the noise of what happened on the battlefield. And it started my love of the film Zulu and the Zulu history.”

From regular viewing of the film at his home near Johannesburg, Coleman progressed to collecting Zulu memorabilia and original posters when he moved to the UK, with a big coup coming when his brother haggled for the hand painted original story boards in 2009 after coming across them accidentally.

The credentials for Coleman to make the documentary stretch back a long way, with organising and curating an exhibition of memorabilia in 2010/11, and making a film of the 50th anniversary screening in London in 2014.

In 2015 he was able to meet Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, founder of the Inkata Freedom Party, and great grandson of the Zulu king Cetawayo, who he played in the film.

“For several weeks in 1963, a unique community was created at the foot of the Drakensburg Mountains,” he said.

“It was a thousand-strong community of actors, film crew and extras. What made it unique was that, at the height of apartheid, it was a community of both black and white, where everyone was respected and everyone treated one another as equals,” Buthelezi said in lending his support to the making of Zulu and the Zulus.

“The thousands of Zulus who were employed to play the part of the regiments were not just extras. They were re-enacting the deeds and glories of their own grandfathers. For the Zulu nation, the memories evoked by this film are recent in our national consciousness, even 136 years later.”

For the fans of the 1960s film, Zulu and the Zulus, and the foretaste of the presentation by Coleman and Stanley Baker’s son Glyn – who was on the set as a boy – will be a golden opportunity to understand more about the film. And also sit among descendants of soldiers who won VCs at Rorke’s Drift.

For those who are not able book their place at the table in Dering Lines, the Royal Welsh Regimental Museum is staging a small exhibition until December 16 featuring Lt Gonville Bromhead’s VC – the officer played by Michael Caine in the film.

For Zulu fans wanting a seat at the table at the Zulu Dinner, contact Dorcas Cresswell at dorcascresswell@gmail.com or phone 01497847262 for a gala dinner night to remember.