I may have completely misunderstood how MLT works, but I am under the impression that in theory you can use OpenGL shaders as effects plugins for MLT and in turn Kdenlive.
In short, I want to try to implement a CRT effect I found here: http://filthypants.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/crt-pixel-shader-filter-for-snes.html as an effect in a video clip (the shaders themselves are located here: http://www.mediafire.com/?78p842uko34ce#oy8kt8pi46b33)

I am not much of a coder, so have I simply got as much hope of this as a fish does mountaineering? Is there some relatively easy way to implement openGL shaders in Kdenlive? Or am I wasting my time?
I found something else that seems related on the MLT website: http://www.mltframework.org/bin/view/MLT/OpenGL, but quite frankly it's all greek to me.

MLT integrated Movit library that uses GPU effects, it was enabled last year in Kdenlive but many parts of the program where not ready for the switch, so I disabled this functionnality. As a result you can't use them in Kdenlive, but still can use it in MLT by editing XML or for simple cases from command line.

Excuse me for my noobishness, but would that mean I could use MLT from the command line or via an XML script to apply the shader to a video clip?
If so, where can I find some documentation/tutorials on how to do this?

http://www.mltframework.org/bin/view/MLT/Documentation