Use u
before that:
>>> print os.listdir(u".")
[u'\u0143.txt']
>>> print map(os.path.exists,os.listdir(u"."))
[True]
Changed in version 2.3: On Windows NT/2k/XP and Unix, if path is a Unicode object, the result will be a list of Unicode objects. Undecodable filenames will still be returned as string objects.