Legendary actress Meryl Streep paid tribute to slain Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia on Sunday during the premiere of the Panama Papers film The Laundromat. 

Speaking at a news conference during the Venice film festival, the three-time Academy Award winner said: “Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist who was investigating someone at the top of the government in Malta and their connection with the Panama Papers was blown up in her car in front of her home.

"People died and people die still to get the word out. This movie is fun and it’s funny but it’s really, really, really important.”

It is the third time that the actress has paid tribute to Caruana Galizia. 

In Stephen Soderbergh’s film, Streep plays a fictional widow who digs into the fate of her late husband’s savings, ultimately exposing the company directors, Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, played in the film by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.

Three men have been charged with murdering Caruana Galizia in October 2017 but the mastermind remains at large.