In 2013 Franchetti Produced The Condemned, an indy feature-length documentary about a remote Russian prison exclusively for murderers. In 2015 produced and co-directed Bolshoi Babylon, a feature-length documentary about the Bolshoi Theatre, for HBO and the BBC. He has presented and produced several BBC prime time documentaries.

Franchetti worked for 25 years as a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London. In the last two decades he has been based in Moscow.

He was awarded the British Press Award in 2003, after reporting on the Moscow theatre siege, when he entered the building twice during the hostage taking to interview the terrorists and a Foreign Press Association award in 2004 for his reports on the alleged abuse of Iraqi civilians by U.S Marines.

​He has written extensively about Russia and the former Soviet Union and covered the conflict in Chechnya and the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, and Ukraine.