I am trying to open a file in "w" mode with "open()" function in python. The filename is : ?????.jpg. The open function fails with this filename but succeeds with normal files. How can I open a file with names which are not in English in python? My code is as follows: try: filename = urllib.quote(filename.encode('utf-8')) destination = open(filename, 'w') yield("<br>Obtained the file reference") except: yield("<br>Error while opening the file") I always get "Error while opening the file" for non-english filenames. Thanks in advance.