PHP-XML-Flash, encoding problem

Hello!
I’m a newbie in PHP so please be patient if you want to help me :}.
Here is my idea:
I have a PHP script which “looks” through certain folders and then writes a XML with information about the files in the folders (which are pictures). Then Flash is supposed to get the information from the XML. It’s all OK and works perfect. [SIZE=4]BUT[/SIZE] when I want to put some cyrillic characters Flash display them as small squares.
I’ve had this problem before and I know the solution: I save the XML (with notepad or something else) with UTF-8 encoding and Flash display the characters normally.
[SIZE=4]BUT[SIZE=2] I have too many XML files! I tried to set the encoding as attribute like that:[/SIZE][/SIZE]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
...here are the nodes...

But I get the same result.
When i open the file in notepad and choose “File->Save as” then adjust the “Encoding” to “UTF-8” and save the file Flash “sees” the cyrillic characters. Can PHP do this last step for me?
Thank you verry much for helping me!

[SIZE=1]p.s. Sorry for my English.[/SIZE]