Index: django/utils/encoding.py
===================================================================
--- django/utils/encoding.py	(revision 6435)
+++ django/utils/encoding.py	(working copy)
@@ -39,7 +39,10 @@
         else:
             s = unicode(str(s), encoding, errors)
     elif not isinstance(s, unicode):
-        s = unicode(s, encoding, errors)
+        try:
+            s = unicode(s, encoding, errors)
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            s = unicode(s, encoding, 'ignore')
     return s
 
 def smart_str(s, encoding='utf-8', strings_only=False, errors='strict'):